Abstract
Cortical layer 1 is the main entrance of top-down signals from other higher cortices and subcortical nuclei. Recent findings challenge the view that top-down signals play just a modulatory role. However, how top-down signals are implemented to help reconstruct the internal representations of images, or an episode of events is poorly understood. Recent experimental data suggest that the “ongoing” brain state without external inputs into layer 4 and attentional top-down signals continually fluctuates among the intrinsic patterns of activity. Viewed from a dynamical systems standpoint, the transitory intrinsic states could be an expression of “attractor ruins”, observed in a mesoscopic dynamical system. We hypothesize that when top-down signals arrive as attention(s), contexts, or indices, the local brain state is temporarily stabilized to be an attractor(-like) state. In view of the anatomical and physiological configurations of neuronal systems in the superficial layers, we propose a hypothetical scenario for such non-classical dynamics in the brain.
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Notes
- 1.
In “mental imagery”, no external stimuli play a role. When one is asked a question such as “which is longer – a donkey’s ears or an ear of corn?”, one may visualize the objects, and “see” the necessary properties, as most people report [4]. As Kosslyn pointed out, this sort of introspection suggests that visual mental images reconstruct the spatial geometry of objects [4].
- 2.
The concept of attractor ruins may include a wider class of non-classical attractors than the Milnor attractor. By this reason, we may use the term “attractor ruins” in this paper to include possible but unknown classes of ruins.
- 3.
“Attractor landscape” is usually used for potential systems. We may use the term here to mean the spatial structure of basins of attractors.
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Acknowledgements
The first author (HF) was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C), No. 19500259, from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of the Japanese Government.
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Fujii, H., Aihara, K., Tsuda, I. (2011). Top-Down Mechanism of Perception: A Scenario on the Role for Layer 1 and 2/3 Projections Viewed from Dynamical Systems Theory. In: Wang, R., Gu, F. (eds) Advances in Cognitive Neurodynamics (II). Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9695-1_11
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