Cortical dynamics revisited

Recent discoveries on the organisation of the cortical connectome together with novel
data on the dynamics of neuronal interactions require an extension of classical
concepts on information processing in the cerebral cortex. These new insights justify
considering the brain as a complex, self-organised system with nonlinear dynamics
in which principles of distributed, parallel processing coexist with serial operations
within highly interconnected networks. The observed dynamics suggest that cortical
networks are capable of providing an extremely high-dimensional state space in
which a large amount of evolutionary and ontogenetically acquired information can
coexist and be accessible to rapid parallel search.