Dynamics of Cortical Columnar Organization: Biological and Computational Approaches

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9421380 Simons The region of the brain called the 'cerebral cortex' is involved in cognitive functions such as learning, recognizing objects, and performing skilled movements. It's function is determined, in part, by the way in which billions of cortical nerve cells are interconnected. Some cortical cells are organized into working clusters called 'columns'. This grant will allow a team headed by Dr. Simons to study how cortical columns make computations about information coming to the cortex from touch receptors. The analysis of the columns will first involve physiological studies of electrical signaling among cells within columns, and these results will be understood by constructing mathematical models of the column circuitry. The results will be important for understanding how the brain constructs flexible representations of the external world. This is likely to advance our ability to design intelligent systems that can perform some of the operations that are normally performed in the cerebral cortex. ***