Rise and fall of modular orthodoxy

Abstract

The premise of cortical modularity is based on strong dissociations caused by focal lesions. These dissociations are rare, and their explanatory power and theoretical importance are vastly overrated. The effects of brain lesions must be considered in their totality, rather than in idiosyncratic selectivity. These effects are more consistent with a continuous, graded functional neocortical geometry, than with a modular neocortex. Distinction must be drawn between strong intrinsic modularity, and weak emergent modularity. Strong intrinsic modularity is more characteristic of the thalamus than of the cortex. The advent of neocortex may have represented an evolutionary escape from strong modularity as the dominant principle of neural organization, and a shift toward a more interactive principle of neural organization dominated by emergent properties. The latter may take the form of weak modularity, reflective of cognitive skill routinization. The extent of weak, emergent modularization may be asymmetric, more pronounced in the left hemisphere, while the right hemisphere is essentially amodular.