Modules of cortical neurons and their "self-assembly"

The data we have by now accumulated on the cytoarchitectonics of the cerebral cortex, as well as published data, suggest that some of the neurons are structurally combined into compact clusters (ensembles, blocks), and that the majority of them participate in the construction of these clusters by directing the terminal branches of their axons to them. The collaterals of projection, associative, and callosal nerve cells, as well as the axons of interneurons which accomplish local interneuronal closures, can combine individual elements of the ensembles into a unified morphofunctional system. The collaterals of the axons of a block of neurons spread divergently to neurons disposed along the perimeter, while the axons of the latter converge reciprocally to the neurons of the cluster, forming a maximum (focus) of the arborization of the axonal terminals there; this makes it possible actively to isolate modules of nerve cells by accomplishing their self-assembly.