Contextual organization of unitary information processes in the cortex by the thalamus and basal ganglia and the central control of attention.
Short-term memory experiments suggest the presence within the neocortex of a basic information unit (a data structure plus an algorithm) able to store and return a relatively fixed number of items. Units of a similar format may be involved in all cortical motor and sensory activities of an integrated nature, and may interact to yield higher-order-information units dealing with interrelationships among groups of units. If individual units can reference other similar units, a hierarchical organization of computing is possible that could form the basis for contextual information processing and the hierarchical structuring characteristic of many specifically human forms of behavior. Vertical columns of neurons in the cortex may provide the physical basis for information units of the type suggested. The selection and organizing of activity in groups of columns may be regulated by a neural loop involving the basal ganglia and the thalamus, which would thus implement the central adjustment of attention.
D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001479:Basal Ganglia / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D007257:Information Theory; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D012677:Sensation / Q000502:physiology; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D013788:Thalamus / Q000502:physiology*