Are Vision and Consciousness Intimately Related?

In my article on brain waves and consciousness I looked at some research associating gamma wave activity with consciousness. This is, however, a controversial area in that other researchers have found that such gamma activity is also correlated with eye movements known as saccades: these are the small eye movements that the brain edits out so that we do not perceive the world as a blur as we switch focus. So, are brain gamma waves merely a byproduct of saccadic movements or are they correlated with consciousness or, potentially, both?

You can follow the relevant articles and the subsequent discussions at Neuron. Also an article Developing Intelligence blog.

Are Vision and Consciousness Intimately Related?


Image: Phosphene artistic depiction (detail) from Wikimedia.