[Cortical neuronal modules and their "self-assembly"]

The light and electron-microscopy original data and other morphological and physiological findings reveal that a population of cortical neurones is gathered in compact cell clusters (blocks, ensembles, modules) and most of neurones participate in maintaining such modules by their axonal ramifications. Some elements of cell clusters may be joined by associative, callosal and projectional thalamic afferents. Authors' new findings are discussed in relation with corresponding literature data. The main attention is given to the self-organization of cortical modules.