Abstract

Many lines of anatomical and physiological evidence have shown that the visual system contains a distinct pathway that is responsible for most motion analysis. In primates this pathway originates in the retinal ganglion cells that send their axons to the magnocellular layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). The outputs from the magnocellular LGN layers directly provide the primary excitatory drive to structures like layer 4B in striate cortex and the middle temporal area (MT) in extrastriate cortex. Both of these structures contain a high proportion of neurons that are selective for the direction of stimulus motion. Later stages of motion processing in parietal cortex appear to contribute to analyzing more complex types of movement such as rotation or looming.

© 1989 Optical Society of America