Line of Gennari
The line of Gennari is a band of myelinated axons that run parallel to the surface of the cerebral cortex on the banks of the calcarine fissure in the occipital lobe. This formation is visible to the naked eye as a white strip running through the cortical grey matter, and is the reason the V1 in primates is also referred to as "striate cortex." The line of Gennari is due to dense axonal input from the thalamus to layer IV of visual cortex. The structure is named for its discoverer, Francesco Gennari, who first observed it in 1776 as a medical student at the University of Parma. He described it in a book which he published six years later. Although non-primate species have areas that are designated primary visual cortex, some lack a stria of Gennari.
