Before a person realises that he or she can see the image in front of his or her eyes, information about it has to travel from the retina (the light-sensitive membrane that is part of the eyeball structure) to the corresponding part of the cerebral cortex, the visual cortex. This pathway is called the visual pathway. When a patient develops visual disturbances (lack of acuity, glare, partial blindness or total blindness), the doctor must determine which part of the visual pathway has been damaged before implementing the appropriate treatment.