There are many arguments for what the unit of the neocortex is. "Columns" seem to be the standard, but what exactly those are is extremely contradictory between individuals, cortical regions, and species. Often times, when a column is referred to, it's actually a functional column without any anatomical borders (such as Hubel and Wiesels ocular dominance columns). Sometimes, the "column" is semi anatomical, such as the rat barrel cortex. Other times, these functional columns are confabulated into anatomical units, without any evidence for a border.
So my question is, could Mountcastle's "minicolumns" be the actual anatomical unit of the cortex? I've heard arguments that they are mere developmental relics. But they seem like the only reliable and consistent unit in the cortex.
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