Cerebral cortex

White, 1989 - anatomical and physiological properties of cortex

Shepherd (1990) - anatomy and physiology of a variety of areas (incl cortex and hippocampus)

Rakic (1994) - developmental construction of cortex

Abbott & Sejnowski (1999) - models

Hertz et al (1991) - constraint satisfaction, energy functions etc.

cortex laminar structure

4 - input layer

often input from thalamus

sublayers

5,6 - output layers (deep)

2,3 - hidden (superficial)

1 - mostly axons

hidden and output neurons have more complex firing properties (White, 1989)

dendrites extend over multiple layers

Crick & Asanuma (1986) discuss connectivity patterns amongst neuron types

in the cortex

a given type of neuron releases only one type of neurotransmitter

[prosem: apparently, can get colocalisation of neurotransmitters on the same neuron under some circumstances]

certainly a neuron can be affected by (i.e. have receptors for) many neurotransmitters

which activates only particular types of postsynaptic receptors

so cortical neurons either send excitatory inputs or inhibitory inputs to other neurons, but not both

N.B. this constraint of excitatory-only or inhibitory-only applies only to the type of output produced by a neuron

they can receive both excitatory and inhibitory inputs