Intro | Abducens | Facial | Glossopharyngeal | Hypoglossal | Oculomotor | Optic | Spinal Accessory | Statoacoustic | Trigeminal | Trochlear | Vagus
Part 1: Image-Mapped Tutorial
Part 2: Matching Self-Test
Part 3: Multiple-Choice Self-Test
Cranial Nerve 2 - Optic (II)
The optic nerve is a purely sensory nerve that conveys information about the visual world around us to the brain for further processing.
| Advanced |
The optic nerve arises in the retina and passes through the optic foramen (opening or passage at the back of the orbit) to form the optic chiasm, a juncture where some fibers cross to the other side of the brain (Parent, 1996). At this point the nerve becomes the optic tract which terminates in the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus. The final processing site for visual perception is in the visual areas of the occipital lobe. More detail on the visual system and pathway is provided in Tutorial 22, Tutorial 23, and Tutorial 24.
| Reference |
Parent, A. (1996). Carpenter's human neuroanatomy (9th ed.). London: Williams & Wilkins.