Open Questions About Computation in Cerebral Cortex

Different areas of cerebral cortex are specialized for processing information from different sensory modalities, such as visual cortex, auditory cortex, and somatosensory cortex, and other areas are specialized for motor functions; however, all of these cortical areas have a similar internal anatomical organization and are more similar to each other in cytoarchitecture than they are to any other part of the brain. The relatively uniform structure of cerebral cortex suggests that it is capable of applying a general-purpose style of computation to many processing domains, from sensory processing to the most abstract reasoning. Whether the similarity between different areas of cortex is merely superficial or extends to the computational level is an experimental question that depends on theoretical issues. Information processing and memory share the same circuitry in cerebral cortex, in contrast with digital computers where the memory and central processing unit are physically separated. The style of 21. COMPUTATION IN CCRERKAL COKTEX 373