Neurons in the retina that project to the brain, stained so that the cell body and the dendrites can be seen. Only the smallest neurons (arrows) died during hydrocephalus, and this cell loss could not be reversed by shunting.

The visual cortex, that portion of the brain that directly receives information describing what a person sees, is located in the back part (occipital lobe) of the brain. In children, the occipital horns of the lateral ventricles enlarge the most during hydrocephalus, and thus the visual cortex can be one of the most compressed and affected regions of the hydrocephalic brain.

Most of our experimental work describing the pathological changes with and without shunting has involved the visual cortex. In addition, we have shown that even some neurons in the retina that relay information to the visual cortex can die during hydrocephalus. These findings are especially relevant to brain function, because the visual impairments are known to influence many forms of learning and memory.