Innovation for visual stimuli: From the retina to primary visual cortex

It is well known that visual evoked potentials (VEPs) are useful for investigating the physiology and pathophysiology of human visual system. VEPs can be used effectively in association with psychophysics to study both normal and abnormal visual functions. Recent progress of VEPs is based on two concepts: 1) visual information is processed simultaneously via multiple parallel pathways or channels and 2) a functional specialization in the visual system exists so that different attributes of the visual scene are processed in an anatomically separate part of the visual cortex. In this study, we first summarize the concepts of the functional anatomy and physiology of human visual system. Then, we emphasize the innovation for the visual stimuli based on the physiological properties of parallel visual pathways.