cortical mechanisms of development, learning, attention, and 3D vision

[Stephen Grossberg]

The following article is now available at 
http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg in PDF:

Grossberg, S. (2003). How does the cerebral cortex work?
Development, learning, attention, and 3D vision by laminar circuits of
visual cortex. Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Reviews, in press.

ABSTRACT: A key goal of behavioral and cognitive neuroscience is to link brain
mechanisms to behavioral functions. The present article describes recent
progress towards explaining how the visual cortex sees. Visual cortex, like
many parts of perceptual and cognitive neocortex, is organized into six main
layers of cells, as well as characteristic sub-lamina. Here it is proposed
how these layered circuits help to realize processes of development,
learning, perceptual grouping, attention, and 3D vision through a
combination of bottom-up, horizontal, and top-down interactions. A key theme
is that the mechanisms which enable development and learning to occur in a
stable way imply properties of adult behavior. These results thus begin to
unify three fields: infant cortical development, adult cortical
neurophysiology and anatomy, and adult visual perception. The identified
cortical mechanisms promise to generalize to explain how other perceptual
and cognitive processes work.