CORTEX AS INTERFEROMETER - TRANSMISSION OF AMPLITUDE FREQUENCY AND PHASE IN CORTICAL STRUCTURES

Concerning the perceptual phenomenon of object constancy: an object may be represented exhaustively in all its transformations only by introducing phase operators (as well as amplitude). The transmission of phase and a metric capable of handling phase in the central nervous system is thus requisite. Interferometry meets these requirements. The occurence of interferometry in the cortex is shown to be feasible. The cortex, it is suggested, codes frequency spatially and in the time domain. This permits phase, also, to be represented by latency changes in the time of arival of patterning upon the cortex. Latency changes are effected by delay methods and may be considered as a kind of temporal modulation of frequencies. For interferometry to work a carrier and a metric must be provided by the brain. The temporal carrier for cortical information can be constituted of indegenous cortical rhythms synchronized by a thalamic trigger. Great flexibility of measuring power is needed in order to account for the generation of information by the brain. The dipole can be shown to provide the metric capable of just such power. © 1969.