Toward a Model of Functional Brain Processes II: Central Nervous System Functional Macro- Architecture

The CNS is endogenously and concurrently active, with primary functional relations being those of oscillatory processes that modulate each other in multifarious ways. One crucial aspect of these processes is that of a kind of set-up of dynamic spaces that regulate other processes within those spaces. Such ‘microgenesis’ of dynamic spaces occurs locally in cortex within differentiations of large and slow processes that set parameters for smaller and faster processes. This is the focus of Part I of this paper. This raises the issue of what modulates such local microgenesis. Modeling such more global processes involves: 1) how they modulate local microgenesis, and 2) how they achieve dynamic coherence. These are the primary issues addressed in this paper (Part II). Introduction In part I, a micro-functional model was presented in which large spatial scale and slow temporal scale processes — involving, for example, volume transmitters, astrocytes, silent neurons, and other phenomena — modulate the dynamics of smaller and faster scale processes, such as classic synapses. Such modulation sets the parameters of the faster dynamics, and is the dynamic system equivalent of “programming”.