Auditory cortex

In the occipital lobe, the tremendously complex sense of sight (visual sense) is cortically represented. The visual pathway starts at the sensory cells of the retina and runs as the II cranial nerve (optic nerve) via several intermediate stations to the primary visual cortex (visual cortex). This represents, in the simple representation of the brain from the side, the most caudal (here: back) pole (occipital pole) of the brain.

However, only a longitudinal section (median section) through the brain reveals its full extent, which runs in the wall of the sulcus calcarinus to the border of the occipital lobe at the cinguli gyrus (represents a separate lobe, see below). Dorsally (here: above), in median section, the paietooccipital sulcus separates the occipital lobe from the parietal lobe. Both of the previously mentioned furrows define a wedge-shaped section of the occipital lobe, the cuneus!

In addition to parts of the primary visual cortex, this section also contains the secondary visual cortex and other visual cortex fields, which e.g. generate eye movements (optokinetic reflex). In this connection, the angular gyrus represents an indispensable intermediate station. Understanding, however, is not the same as the ability to name. To express what is seen in words, there must be an urgent connection from the Wernicke center to the Broca center, from where the premotor and motor cortical fields can be accessed. The final step is the activation of the corresponding musculature, which allows speech formation (phonation and articulation).

Island Bark

Further up in the text we talked about the sulcus temporalis. If you push a finger far enough into this furrow, the fingertip hits the insular bark (own lobe, Lobus insularis). It is a bark field that is devoted to several sensory qualities at once (multisensory cortex), the sense of taste (gustatory sense), the sense of balance (vestibular sense) and the quite specific sensitivity of the intestines (visceral sensitivity).

Thus, it represents the preliminary end point of the gustatory pathway, the primary gustatory cortex (awareness). In addition, a part of the primary vestibular cortex is located here (awareness). It is also at this cortex that feelings such as a filled bladder, nausea or a feeling of fullness after an extensive meal come to consciousness. It is information about the condition of our internal organs, primarily viscerosensitive cortex. As with other sensory qualities, the associated information travels a well-defined path through the body (viscerosensitive path).