The cerebral cortex is a paired structure in the forebrain that is found only in mammals and that is largest (relative to body size) in humans (Herrick 1926; Jerison 1973). Its most distinctive anatomical features are (i) the very extensive internal connections between one part and another part, and (ii) its arrangement as a six-layered sheet of cells, many of which cells are typical pyramidal cells. Although the crumpled, folded surface of this sheet is responsible for the very characteristic appearance of the brains of large mammals, the cortex of small mammals tends to be smooth and unfolded. Where folds occur, each fold, or gyrus, is about 1/2 cm in width (Sarnat and Netsky 1981).
-- Horace Barlow
References
Barlow, H. B. (1981). Critical limiting factors in the design of the eye and visual cortex. The Ferrier Lecture, 1980. Proceedings of the Royal Society, London Series B 212: 1 - 34.Barlow, H. B. (1994). What is the computational goal of the neocortex? In C. Koch and J. Davis, Eds., Large Scale Neuronal Theories of the Brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Braitenberg, V., and A. Schuz. (1991). Anatomy of the Cortex: Statistics and Geometry. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Hebb, D. O. (1949). The Organisation of Behaviour. New York: Wiley.
Herrick, C. J. (1926). Brains of Rats and Men. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Hubel, D. H., and T. N. Wiesel. (1970). The period of susceptibility to the physiological effects of unilateral eye closure in kittens. Journal of Physiology 206: 419 - 436.
Jerison, H. J. (1973). Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence. New York: Academic Press.
Macphail, E. (1982). Brain and Intelligence in Vertebrates. New York: Oxford University Press.
Movshon, J. A., and R. C. Van Sluyters. (1981). Visual neural development. Annual Review of Psychology 32: 477 - 522.
Phillips, C. G., S. Zeki, and H. B. Barlow. (1984). Localisation of function in the cerebral cortex. Brain 107: 327 - 361.
Sarnat, H. B., and M. G. Netsky. (1981). Evolution of the Nervous System. New York: Oxford University Press.
Thompson, R. F. (1990). Neural mechanisms of classical conditioning in mammals. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series B 329:171 - 178.
Yeo, C. H., M. J. Hardiman, and M. Glickstein. (1985). Classical conditioning of the nictitating membrane response of the rabbit (3 papers). Experimental Brain Research 60: 87 - 98; 99 - 113; 114 - 125.
Further Readings
Abeles, M. (1991). Corticonics: Neural Circuits of the Cerebral Cortex. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Creuzfeldt, O. D. (1983). Cortex cerebri: leistung, strukturelle und functionelle Organisation der Hirnrinde. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Translated by Mary Creuzfeldt et al. as "Cortex cerebri: performance, structural and functional organisation of the cortex," Gottingen 1993.
Jones, E. G., and A. Peters. (1985). Cerebral Cortex. Five volumes. New York: Plenum Press.
Martin, R. D. (1990). Primate Origins and Evolution. London: Chapman and Hall.
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