Cortical Blindness

Question: I am in a science class I have to write something about science, so I have chosen to write about blindness. It would be great if you could answer some questions about the occipital lobes. My question is could you become blind if the occipital lobes get damaged and if so what happens in the brain when you become blind.  

Answer: The occipital lobes are responsible for processing visual information but that does not necessarily mean that the person becomes blind when they sustain damage to the occipital lobe. In fact, many people who are blind have damage to the eye itself and not to the occipital lobe. I believe the search term that you would want to research would be "cortical blindness". This would refer to blindness that is stemming from a problem within the brain.