Interconnections Between the Thalamus and Retrosplenial Cortex in the Rodent Brain
1993; Linguagem: Inglês
10.1007/978-1-4899-6704-6_4
AutoresThomas van Groen, Brent A. Vogt, J. Michael Wyss,
Tópico(s)Memory and Neural Mechanisms
ResumoOne of the most important concepts for understanding cortical function and structure has been the vertical compartmentaliza-tion of cortical cells and their connections. Based on extensive anatomical studies of cortical neurons, Lorente de Nó (1938) hypothesized that vertically linked groups of neurons are the elementary functional unit in the cerebral cortex. Subsequent electrophysiological studies by Mountcastle (1957) indicated that somatosensory cortex displays a columnar organization, with cells having similar functional properties arranged along the radial axis of the cortex from the pial surface to the white matter. Later morphological and functional studies have detailed the vertical organization of somatosensory (Woolsey and Van der Loos, 1970; Wise and Jones, 1978), visual (Hubel and Wiesel, 1962; Winkelmann et al., 1975), and auditory (Imig and Brugge, 1978; Vaughan, 1983) cortices. In these areas, the vertical compartments, or "columns, " correspond to regularly spaced divisions of primary sensory input from the thalamus. These studies together with his own studies led Szentágo-thai (1975, 1978) to propose that the vertically oriented cortical module, the column, is the basic functional unit in the entire cerebral cortex.
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