ELECTRICAL RESPONSES ACCOMPANYING ACTIVITY OF THE OPTIC PATHWAY

Abstract

The act of vision involves a peripheral stimulus of the retina by light plus the transmission of the visual impulse so set up over the neural pathway to the cortex and the registering of this impulse in the brain. The purpose of this paper is to review the more recent information on the activity of the various elements involved in this process and on the modifications that take place in the character of this impulse as it passes over the different neural elements lying between sense organ and sensorium. Since each element when activated gives off a minute quantity of electricity, the recording of action currents provides the most convenient means of recognizing the components of this impulse and of analyzing the mode of behavior of the neural elements concerned in its propagation. The following discussion will be largely confined to a consideration of what such action currents