Blindsight after Optic Nerve Injury Indicates Functionality of Spared Fibers

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Some patients, after a brain injury, can accurately respond to visual stimuli even though they are unable to see them. This phenomenon is called blindsight. Despite numerous studies, the neurological basis of blindsight remains controversial: whether the substrate is the uninjured extrastriate pathway (EXP) which bypasses the lesion site or "islands of vision"—residual fibers within damaged visual cortex.

In the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, authors Stefan Wüst, Erich Kasten, and Bernhard A. Sabel present research which, for the first time, shows blindsight responses in "blind" regions of patients with damage both in the optic nerve and EXP—findings which support the view that even a few surviving optic nerve axons in a lesion site are sufficient to mediate blindsight.