The information then leaves the eye along the optic nerve, a cable of about 1.5 million fibers, and reaches the thalamus at the base of the brain. The incoming visual information targets one specific part of the thalamus, a bump on its side called the lateral geniculate nucleus (Latin for, literally, “the nucleus sticking out the side that looks like somebody’s knee”). Once again, the information is passed through a competitive sieve in the thalamus.
