CNN models in the visual pathway and the “Bionic Eye”

There is an on-going quest by engineers and specialists: compete with and imitate nature, especially some “smart” animals. Vision is one particular area computer engineers are interested in. Terms like “machine vision” and “computer vision” demonstrate this interest. Recently, modeling the living visual system has become a focus in science and technology. As the anatomy and physiology of the eye and other elements of the visual pathway are becoming more and more known, especially in the retinatopic part (Retina, Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN), and the Visual Cortex), engineers have been trying to imitate these models. These studies have led to a better understanding of vision, overcoming the clear deficiencies of earlier, though useful, principles of computer vision before the mid 1980s.