The
occipital lobe is one of the four
major lobes of the
cerebral cortex in the
brain of
mammals. The occipital lobe is the
visual processing center of the
mammalian brain containing most of the anatomical region of the
visual cortex. The
primary visual cortex is
Brodmann area 17, commonly called V1 (visual one). Human V1 is located on the medial side of the occipital lobe within the
calcarine sulcus; the full extent of V1 often continues onto the posterior pole of the occipital lobe. V1 is often also called striate cortex because it can be identified by a large stripe of myelin, the
Stria of Gennari. Visually driven regions outside V1 are called
extrastriate cortex. There are many extrastriate regions, and these are specialized for different visual tasks, such as visuospatial processing, color differentiation, and motion perception. The name derives from the overlying
occipital bone, which is named from the Latin
ob,
behind, and
caput,
the head. Bilateral lesions of the occipital lobe can lead to cortical blindness (See
Anton's syndrome).