[Neuroarchitectonics and interneuronal connections as a basis for somatotopic organization of the human cerebral cortex].

  • 1 March 1981
    • journal article
    • abstracts
    • Vol. 80  (3) , 18-27
Abstract
Fields 4, 3, 1 of the mature brain (8 cases) have been studied by means of Klüver-Barrer's, Golgi's and Peters' methods. Neuroarchitectonics of the areas studied in the human neocortex can be presented as a continuous series of neuronal ensambles, each of them occupying, in the cortical space, the figure of the cylinder, or that of the upset truncated cone and consisting of interconnected groups of the pyramidal cell columns; along their periphery the stellate element columns are situated. Some new facts concerning the structure of the myelinated axon are discovered and in the pyramidal and stellate neurons a new type of contact "to itself" is stated -- a dendro-somatic one. It is stated that various connections along the vertical make the prevailed type of connections in the neuronal ensamble. They form, in every cellular column, successive-parallel chains of switching where every preceding cell is not only reciprocally connected with every subsequent one, but any pyramidal neuron is connected with every element composing the chain. It is possible to suppose, proceeding from the presence of such chains of switching, that every cellular column is a single block, all its neurons, despite the heteromodal afferentation they obtain, should function synchronously integrating unitypical responses. It has been stated that the cellular columns included into the neuronal ensamble are united with each other by reciprocal and horizontally running connections and by afferent conductors. As a result, a single integrative mechanism is formed, with a unique result of efficiency. Since every neuronal ensamble is a specific and unique (concerning its neuronal composition and connections) system, the response of the system in question should be not only unitypical, but possess a fine peculiar differentiation, that is neuronal ensambles are specific morpho-functional units in the somatotopic organization of the human motor cortex.

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