Anatomical and Topological Foundations of Cognitive Neurodynamics in Cerebral Cortex

Abstract

Perception requires action of the body into the environment in search of information that the brain needs to optimize engagement of its body with the world. Actions to achieve maximum grip are implemented in sequential motor command transmitted by the limbic system into the brain stem. Simultaneously preaffer- ence sends efference copies to the sensory cortices that activate landscapes of chaotic attractors, which serve to predict the sensory consequences of the impending actions. The microscopic sensory impact delivers trains of action potentials to the primary sensory areas. The trains select relevant basins of attraction; selected attrac- tors send wave packets into the limbic system, where they are integrated in time and space into a multisensory percept that is re-transmitted to all sensory areas as effer- ence copies. The action-perception cycle is conceived topologically as a helix for predictive hypothesis-testing and knowledge-accrual. The cycle categorizes sensory inputs, which then choose appropriate actions.