Bilateral column complex in the rat primary somatosensory cortex: discrete system of spatial integration

Results have been obtained which suggest that various types of functionality organized barrel columns in the projections of lateral and medial vibrassae exist with respect to different qualities of information processing. The first type deals with information on the degree of the tactile stimuli's lateral application, and the second type deals with bilateral spatial characteristics of the stimulus. It was demonstrated that homotopic barrel columns in the projections of medial whiskers were coupled by their bilateral callosal afferents and seemed to be a united system of distributed elements, which the author calls the bilateral complex (BC), and which is apparently the functional unit of neuronal network integration higher than the column level. As a result of these findings, it has been hypothesized that these BC are a specialized sensory organ of bilateral perception.< >