The clinical and functional measurement of cortical (in)activity in the visual brain, with special reference to the two subdivisions (V4 and V4 alpha) of the human colour centre.

We argue below that, at least in studying the visual brain, the old and simple methods of detailed clinical assessment and perimetric measurement still yield important insights into the organization of the visual brain as a whole, as well as the organization of the individual areas within it. To demonstrate our point, we rely especially on the motion and colour systems, emphasizing in particular how clinical observations predicted an important feature of the organization of the colour centre in the human brain. With the use of data from functional magnetic resonance imaging analysed by statistical parametric mapping and independent component analysis, we show that the colour centre is composed of two subdivisions, V4 and V4 alpha the two together constituting the V4 complex of the human brain. These two subdivisions are intimately linked anatomically and act cooperatively. The new evidence about the architecture of the colour centre might help to explain why the syndrome, cerebral achromatopsia, produced by lesions in it is so variable.