Word: cortex
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...scientists have been trying to devise ways of evaluating animal intelligence. So far, none of them works perfectly. One theory holds that the bigger the brain size in proportion to the body and the more creased the cerebrum portion, the brighter the animal. But, notes Beck, "the human cerebral cortex occupies no greater a proportion in the human brain than in any other primate...
...team took months to convince themselves that edges and lines caused the reactions in the cells. A newspaper or television picture is made up of tiny dots. But Hubel and Wiesel found that the visual cortex breaks objects down, not into dots, but into line segments...
...Each of these cells in the cortex is looking out of a pinhole to the world," Wiesel says, "only at later stages combining into a whole...
...overall primary visual cortex, Hubel and Wiesel discovered, is composed of two systems of columns. One groups together cells recognizing steadily changing angles of orientation of bars and edges, while the other holds cells with the same eye preference. This architecture has since been found all along the cortex, even in areas having functions which are still unknown...
...nurture these connection between the eye and visual cortex properly," if they are not used within a "critical period after birth, they will be lost," Wiesel says...