[neurocat123]

> Scientists have believed for a long time that severe damage to the visual cortex in the left side of your brain will leave you unable to see out of your right eye, assuming that the ability to see out of one eye is largely due to the visual cortex on the opposite side. Yet more than 50 years ago, studies on cats with cortical blindness on one side showed that it is possible to restore some of the lost sight by cutting a connection deep in the cat’s midbrain. A bit more damage allowed the cats to orient toward and approach moving objects.

I've presented on blindsight before, the phenomenon where a person cannot describe or draw items that are presented in one side of their visual field, due to trauma to their primary visual cortex (V1), but they can still guess what these items are above chance level, direct their gaze to them, reach for them and so on. The superior colliculus seems to play a large role in this, and there are also visual projections that bypass V1, which could be partly responsible for the phenomenon. But this tidbit about "cutting a connection deep in the cat's midbrain" is new to me. Does this ring a bell for anyone?