The premise of this research, that the cortex is broken up into discontinuous “columns”, is only partly true. If you record several neurons that are lined up one on top of another in different layers of the cortex, they will usually respond to the same stimulus or activity: for example, responding to touch on the same finger.
But the word “column” implies discontinuous modules. You can actually observe this in sensory cortex of mice and rats, where each whisker has a 1-1 relationship with a “column” of neurons that primarily respond to that whisker. This observation is what originally led neuroscientists to propose the concept of the column as a fundamental unit of organization of the cortex.
But it turned out that lots of other brain regions don’t have this kind of discontinuous organization. Neuroscientists still use the term “cortical column” but they’re really just referring to the fact that vertically aligned neurons seem to be closely connected.
When the Numenta people talk about “cortical columns” they seem to be describing the original idea of cortical columns that didn’t pan out. It’s really weird.
But the word “column” implies discontinuous modules. You can actually observe this in sensory cortex of mice and rats, where each whisker has a 1-1 relationship with a “column” of neurons that primarily respond to that whisker. This observation is what originally led neuroscientists to propose the concept of the column as a fundamental unit of organization of the cortex.
But it turned out that lots of other brain regions don’t have this kind of discontinuous organization. Neuroscientists still use the term “cortical column” but they’re really just referring to the fact that vertically aligned neurons seem to be closely connected.
When the Numenta people talk about “cortical columns” they seem to be describing the original idea of cortical columns that didn’t pan out. It’s really weird.