Cortical columns for quick brains

TL;DR

This study investigates whether cortical columns enhance neural computation speed and wiring efficiency, finding that their primary benefit lies in inter-columnar communication rather than internal wiring, challenging common assumptions.

Contribution

The paper provides empirical evidence that cortical columns mainly facilitate faster inter-columnar communication rather than internal wiring optimization.

Findings

No evidence of internal wiring efficiency within columns

Columns improve inter-columnar information transfer speed

Columnar organization reduces total wiring length across the network

Abstract

It is widely believed that the particular wiring observed within cortical columns boosts neural computation. We use rewiring of neural networks performing real-world cognitive tasks to study the validity of this argument. In a vast survey of wirings within the column we detect, however, no traces of the proposed effect. It is on the mesoscopic inter-columnar scale that the existence of columns - largely irrespective of their inner organization - enhances the speed of information transfer and minimizes the total wiring length required to bind the distributed columnar computations towards spatio-temporally coherent results.