Health Services > Acquired Brain Injury Outreach Service (ABIOS)

Occipital Lobes

The occipital lobes are the centre of our visual perception system. They are not particularly vulnerable to injury because of their location at the back of the brain, although any significant trauma to the brain could produce subtle changes to our visual-perceptual system, such as visual field defects and scotomas.

Location

Most posterior, at the back of the head.

Functions:

Vision

Observed Problems:

Defects in vision (Visual Field Deficits).
Difficulty with locating objects in environment.
Difficulty with identifying colours (Colour Agnosia).
Production of hallucinations
Visual illusions - inaccurately seeing objects.
Word blindness - inability to recognize words.
Difficulty in recognizing drawn objects.
Inability to recognize the movement of an object (Movement Agnosia).
Difficulties with reading and writing.

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Last Updated: 04 June 2008
Last Reviewed: 04 June 2008