Anatomy of Primary Visual Cortex: A Revision of the Classic Holmes Map of the Visual Field Representation

The representation of the visual field in human striate cortex was originally studied by Inouye, an ophthalmologist treating wounded survivors of the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War. He correlated visual field deficits with the trajectory of missiles penetrating the occipital to construct the first retinotopic map of striate cortex. A decade later, Holmes and Lister examined soldiers injured In World War I and confirmed the essential features of Inouye's map. The familiar Holmes map (Figure 1) has been widely reproduced in textbooks and still provides the most detailed source of primary data concerning the representation of the visual field in human striate cortex.