Self-organization of cortical areas in the development and evolution of neocortex: a network growth model

While the mechanisms generating the topographic organization of primary sensory areas in the neocortex are well-studied, what generates secondary cortical areas is virtually unknown. Using physical parameters representing primary and secondary visual areas as they vary from monkey to mouse, we derived a growth model to explore if characteristic features of secondary areas could be produced from correlated activity patterns arising from V1 alone. We found that V1 seeded variable numbers of secondary areas based on activity-driven wiring and wiring density limits within the cortical surface. These secondary areas exhibited the typical mirror-reversal of map topography on cortical area boundaries and progressive reduction of the area and spatial resolution of each new map on the caudorostral axis. Activity-based map formation may be the basic mechanism that establishes the matrix of topographically-organized cortical areas available for later computational specialization.