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Updated: Jun 23, 2026

Single-unit In vivo Recordings from the Optic Chiasm of Rat
Published on: April 2, 2010
Isaac Newton's description of the optic chiasm
Caio C D Disserol1,2,3, Mario T Sato2,4, Yago Alfaro2
1Universidade Federal do Paraná, Hospital de Clínicas, Departamento de Medicina Interna, Serviço de Neurologia, Curitiba PR, Brazil.
None:
Sir Isaac Newton is widely regarded as one of the greatest scientific minds in history, with seminal contributions across mathematics, physics-particularly optics-and the formulation of the law of universal gravitation. Less well known, however, is his extraordinary and rarely recognized contribution to the field of neurology: the early conceptualization of fiber decussation within the optic chiasm. Through his studies on light and vision, Newton proposed that optic nerve fibers cross at the chiasm-a hypothesis that would later be anatomically confirmed and provided the basis for understanding the classic patterns of visual field deficits.
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