From my post on Less is more? stroke rehab I wondered if neurons could multitask. This answers the question as yes. This is from the book, Beyond Boundaries, couldn't get the google book so this is copied from page 172.
The Neuronal Multitasking Principle
Individual cortical neurons and their probabilistic firing can simultaneously participate in multiple functional neuronal ensembles. That means that the spikes produced by a single cortical neuron can be utilized by distinct neural ensembles to encode multiple functional and behavioral parameters. Thus, even though in a particular moment in time a singlecortical neuron may exhibit sharper tuning to a particular motor or sensory parameter, performed by another subset of neurons. The neuronal multitasking principle predicts that the entire cortex is capable of exhibiting cross-modal sensory responses, and that individual neurons are capable of encoding multiple motor, or other higher cognitive parameters.This is so cool, I feel much better knowing this.
The whole book is good reading to understand the brain more.
No comments:
Post a Comment