Artificial Consciousness/Neural Correlates/Inter-Organ Connection Models/Cortico-Cortical Connections

Cortico-Cortical Connections
There are two types of connections within the brain that connect the cortex to itself, what I call the Cortico-Cortical Connections within the cortex, and the Corpus Collosum, and Commisures that form bodies of connection outside the cortex itself. This article is about the first type, I will dedicate another article to the second type later.

It is important to recognize that there are many different connections within the cortex. One thing that has been noted is the high level of re-entry between neural groups in the cortex. Dr. Edelman published a picture that looked like these formed a grid, across the cortex, but that is of course a hopeless oversimplification. As well, we know that there are connections between Layer 2/3 and Layer 5. That link the output of the actual memory neurons to the activation of the Mini-column. To add to that we have networks of neurons that run almost the length of the cortex, hooking up the parietal lobe to the frontal lobes. Frankly there are a lot more connections, and I am not enough of a neuro-anatomist to describe them.

The reason that the Cerebral Cortex is so well interconnected, is partly because processing in some areas influences processing in other areas. However it is important to note that except for connections like the frontal parietal network, that connect remote areas of the brain, most interconnections do not extend past the Lobe boundaries. Because the lobe boundaries are more or less indications of the boundaries between sensory modalities, we can predict that most minds have several and isolated sensory processing systems. This creates the problem of Stove Pipe processing where processing is vertically integrated within a sensory modality but cross sensory connections are discouraged in the actual cerebral cortex.

There are conditions like synaethesia where cross connections between modalities survive the early babyhood, but these are exceptions or attempts by the brain to rewire after trauma.