Definition
The parvocellular pathway is one of the three primary visual pathways (magnocellular, parvocellular, and koniocellular pathways) traveling subcortically from the retina to visual cortex via the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). Cells in the parvocellular pathway (P pathway) are specialized for detecting color. Information from the P pathway is thought to feed primarily into the ventral visual stream (i.e., to visual association cortex in the temporal lobe). Experimental ablation of the P pathway results in the loss of color vision, as well as impairments in the perception of fine detailed texture and shape analysis.
Current Knowledge
Of the three major visual streams in the primate visual system, the parvocellular and magnocellular (M) pathways have received a great deal of investigation, while less is known about koniocellular (K) pathway, which has only recently been discovered. In general, the M and P pathways are considered to be independent systems, each serving...
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De Valois, R. L., & Cottaris, N. P. (1998). Inputs to directionally selective simple cells in macaque striate cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 95(24), 14488–14493.
For Information About the M and P Pathways See:
Kaplan, E., Lee, B. B., & Shapley, R. M. (1990). New views of primate retinal function. In N. N. Osborne & G. J. Chader (Eds.), Progress in retinal research (Vol. 9., pp. 273–336). New York: Pergamon.
Merigan, W. H., & Maunsell, J. H. R. (1993). How parallel are the primate visual pathways? Annual Review of Neuroscience, 16, 369–402.
Van Essen, D. C., & Maunsell, J. H. R. (1983). Hierarchical organization and functional streams in the visual cortex. Trends in Neuroscience, 6, 270–275.
For Information About the K Pathway See:
White, A. J. R., Solomon, S. G., & Martin, P. R. (2001). Spatial properties of koniocellular cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the marmoset Calithrix jacchus. The Journal of Physiology, 533, 519–535.
Xu, X., Ichida, M. J., Allison, J. D., Boyd, J. D., Bonds, A. B., & Casagrande, V. A. (2001). A comparison of koniocellular, magnocellular and parvocellular receptive field properties in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the owl monkey (Aotus trivirgatus). The Journal of Physiology, 531, 203–218.
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Clark, U. (2011). Parvocellular Neurons. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1391
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79948-3_1391
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