The lobes of the brain are named from the overlying bone and the occipital bone overlies the occipital lobes. Located in the rearmost portion of the skull, the occipital lobes are part of the posterior cerebrum. The two occipital lobes are the smallest of four paired lobes in the human brain. Occipital lobe (red) of left cerebral hemisphere.
Occipital gyri shown lower right Animation. Structure Diagram of gyri of brain viewed on lateral hemisphere. Bilateral lesions of the occipital lobe can lead to cortical blindness (see Anton's syndrome). There are many extrastriate regions, and these are specialized for different visual tasks, such as visuospatial processing, color differentiation, and motion perception. Visually driven regions outside V1 are called extrastriate cortex. V1 is often also called striate cortex because it can be identified by a large stripe of myelin, the Stria of Gennari. 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 occipital pole. The primary visual cortex is Brodmann area 17, commonly called V1 (visual one).
The occipital lobe is the visual processing center of the mammalian brain containing most of the anatomical region of the visual cortex. The name derives from its position at the back of the head, from the Latin ob, 'behind', and caput, 'head'. The occipital lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals.
