A Roadmap to the Cerebral Cortices

A Roadmap to the Cerebral Cortices

Robert A. Moss, Ph.D., ABN, ABPP

 

I and some of my students have made the argument that the cortical column is the binary unit, or bit, involved in all cortical processing and memory storage (Moss, 2006; Moss, Hunter, Shah, & Havens, 2012). A column ranges from approximately 0.4 to 1.0 mm in diameter, being composed of several hundred minicolumns each of which contains around 100 to 200 neurons. We have suggested that oscillations (which would obviously be neuron firing rates) in the gamma range result in dynamic column formation in which only the outermost neurons are synchronized. The result is that only a fraction of a column’s neurons are committed to the columnar information bit which allows for structural integrity (e.g., resistance to damage). Moreover, in the presence of overlapping columns, it is believed this would allow for the large volume of information storage present in the cortex.


The Neuropsychotherapist
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