Dynamics of cortical activation in a hemianopic patient

Although residual vision in patients with cortical blindness is common, its brain mechanisms are poorly known. To study these mechanisms we measured neuromagnetic responses to visual stimuli in a patient with right posterior cerebral lesion and left visual field hemianopia. His vision had partially recovered with intensive training before our measurements. Compared with the processing in the healthy side, early occipital responses were attenuated for both passive viewing of checkerboard reversal patterns and a letter identification task. In both conditions there were prominent longer-latency responses at the right superior temporal cortex. We suggest that the activation in the superior temporal cortex can partially compensate for the failure to produce synchronized population responses at the early stages of visual cortical processing.