Study Advances New Theory of How the Brain Is Wired

From Columbia.edu:

Speaking. Seeing. Hearing. Thinking. Remembering. Understanding this sentence and making a decision about whether or not to read on. All of this work is handled in the cerebral cortex, the deeply creased, outermost portion of the brain that is the center of all the higher brain functions that make us human. Humans have the thickest cortex of any species but, even so, it measures no more than 4 millimeters (.16 inches) thick. For decades, scientists thought they had a pretty clear understanding of how signals move through the cerebral cortex. By studying the anatomy of nerve axons—the wires that connect nerve cells—they had concluded that information is relayed through a “column” of six layers of specialized nerve cells in a series of hand-offs that begins in the mid-layer of the cortex, then moves to other layers before triggering a behavioral response.

Now a study by Columbia neuroscientist Dr. Randy Bruno indicates this longstanding view is incorrect. Looking at how sensory information is processed in rats, Bruno found that signals are processed in two parts of the cortex simultaneously rather than in series—almost as if there are two brains. “Our findings challenge dogma,” says Bruno, assistant professor of neuroscience and a faculty member at Columbia’s new Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and the Kavli Institute for Brain Science. “The upper and lower layers form separate circuits that do separate things.” The discovery, he says, “opens up a different way of thinking about how the cerebral cortex does what it does, which includes not only processing sight, sound and touch but higher functions such as speech, decision-making and abstract thought.”

More here.