Self-organization and brain function

Self-organization is a fundamental property of complex systems, describing the order spontaneously arising by the local interactions of the system components not mediated by top-down inputs. Though, self-organizing systems typically possess a large number of components and exhibit complex dynamics, their evolution is deterministic and governed by a small number of order parameters. This property is used here to model the self-organization of the ocular dominance columns of the striate cortex in patterns of neighboring stripes, which respond preferentially to inputs from the left or the right eye. Therefore, the Swift-Hohenberg equation was used which depends on two order parameters. The first one determines the spatial wavelength of the stripes and the second one the branchiness of the pattern. This simple model suffices to study the basic properties of ocular dominance self-organization. Possibly, a combination with models for self-organization in neighboring cortical layers would allow investigating higher organizational principles of the cortex, e.g. the coordination between ocular dominance, orientation, and cytochrome oxidase.