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Could somebody help please in providing some research papers or a resource book that states how much the visual cortex occupies of our cortex?

I am trying to find some reliable source but I couldn't find any other than one article mentioning it is 30%. But still I need to cite a reference.

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    $\begingroup$ How would you define visual cortex? $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Jun 23, 2019 at 14:59
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    $\begingroup$ doesn't the term by itself refer to the area of neurons that are responsible of visual responses (e.g. V1-V5, MT...etc.)? $\endgroup$
    – wisdom
    Commented Jun 23, 2019 at 18:23
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    $\begingroup$ There's no completely clear boundary because as you go up the hierarchy cortex gets more and more multimodal. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 0:38
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    $\begingroup$ then do I understand that, there is no clear statement in the literature defining how much the visual cortex occupies from the whole brain? I remember we studied like 1/3 of the brain is dedicated only for visual processing...and I am trying to find it in some resources with no hope yet. $\endgroup$
    – wisdom
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 6:51
  • $\begingroup$ You're probably best off just looking at a map of Brodmann areas or something and coming up with an estimate, or look at a standardized atlas if you want to calculate it yourself. I doubt you will actually find a publication that says "XX % of neocortex is visual" - there's too much nuance in terms of where you draw the boundaries (do motor areas involved in vision count? do areas that have visual responses but also respond to other modalities count? if so how to say an area is more visual than auditory, say), individual differences, gray versus white matter, etc. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Jun 24, 2019 at 15:38

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As Bryan Krause indicates in the comments, the statement that 'One third of the cortical surface is dedicated to vision processing' is disputable. Especially given that fact that there's evidence that even the primary visual cortex is involved in multimodal processing (MacPherson, 2018). Nonetheless, it is a valuable statement as it makes clear that a lot of our cortex can process visual stimuli and that it is an important sense for us.

If you need a reference for the one third statement, you can use Kupers & Ptito (2014) or (MacPherson, 2018). Note that these references are secondary literature, i.e., they are not research papers where they actually calculated the cortical surface involved in visual processing.

VisualAreas
Fig. 1. Functional areas of the cortex. Source: Boundless Physiology Textbook

References
- MacPherson, Sensory Substitution and Augmentation, Proceedings of the British Academy 2018
- Kupers & Ptito, Neurosci Biobehav Rev (2014); 41: 36–52

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    $\begingroup$ Oh great...I am taking a look into the references. thank you ^_^ $\endgroup$
    – wisdom
    Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 6:42

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