IUBio

Cortex thickness

Didier A. Depireux didier at Glue.umd.edu
Tue May 4 08:37:31 EST 1999


John E Anderson (jander at unf.edu) wrote:
: > When writers say that the cortex is only 6 layers deep, do they mean it's
: > simply 6 neurons deep or 6 layers that are thicker than 1 neuron?

: They mean six layers that are thicker than one neuron.  For details, see
: Corticonics (1991) by M Abeles or Anatomy of the Cortex (1991) by Braitenberg
: and Schuez.

I particularly recommend Braitenberg for that kind of question. I just
wanted to add that _6_ layers is fairly arbitrary, and that in the early
days, different schools suggested different numbers, from 3 to 7.
Additionally, in striate cortex, people stick to the 6 layer concept, and
then talk about layer 4(a) and 4(b) and some sublayers even come with their
alpha and beta and gamma subdivisions!

						Didier

--
Didier A Depireux                              didier at isr.umd.edu
Neural Systems Lab                 http://www.isr.umd.edu/~didier
Institute for Systems Research          Phone: 301-405-6557 (off)
University of Maryland                                -6596 (lab)
College Park MD 20742 USA                     Fax: 1-301-314-9920



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