A 3RD PARALLEL VISUAL PATHWAY TO PRIMATE AREA-V1

Recent studies of the primate visual system have focused on the proposal that the perception of form and motion are processed by two parallel pathways that originate from separate populations of cells in the retina. Earlier proposals for parallel processing of visual signals identified a third pathway that could be traced from the retina to the visual cortex. This third pathway was assumed to be unimportant. A growing body of evidence suggests that this pathway to cortex is distinct anatomically, physiologically and neurochemically, and is well represented in primates. These findings raise new and interesting questions not only about the role of this pathway, but also about the intracortical integration of afferent parallel signals.