Cortical blindness

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Classification according to ICD-10
H47.6	Affections of the visual cortex
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)

The center of vision is marked in yellow. The dark yellow area is the projection field of vision that failed in the case of cortical blindness. The light yellow area is the field of association of seeing, which is lost in the case of soul blindness .

The sulcus calcarinus (English: "calcarine fissure") is a horizontal furrow in the primary visual cortex that separates the projections from the upper and lower visual fields.

Cortical blindness is an older neurological term for blindness due to a partial or complete failure of the primary visual cortex , i.e. the cortical area V1. More common today are the more specific names for partial failures, hemianopsia , quadrant anopia and scotoma (see anopia ). Since the primary visual cortex is organized retinotopically , the failures are expressed in the absence of conscious perception in circumscribed areas of the visual field . Since the visual fields of the left and right eye project onto the same side of the brain, the failures are homonymous. H. are the same for the left and right eye.

Cortical blindness is to be differentiated from mental blindness (the visual agnosia ), which is also based on lesions of the cortex , but on damage to higher visual areas if the primary visual cortex is intact. If there is a residual function of visual information processing in parts of the field of vision, one speaks of blind vision . The affected persons have no conscious visual impressions in these visual field areas, since the intactness of the primary visual cortex is obviously a prerequisite for this. Nevertheless, they can react sensibly to presented visual stimuli and, for example, indicate their location or name their color. A dissociative identity disorder , which can cause symptoms of cortical blindness, including the associated visual evoked potentials , must also be differentiated .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ B. Waldvogel, A. Ullrich, H. Strasburger: Blind and seeing in one person: conclusions on the psychoneurobiology of seeing . In: The neurologist . tape 78 , no. November 11 , 2007, ISSN  0028-2804 , p. 1303-1309 , doi : 10.1007 / s00115-007-2309-x ( springer.com [accessed January 9, 2020]).