ABSTRACT
In a learning situation, information about multidimensional event is widely distributed throughout anatomically extensive brain regions. Each brain region sends outputs to and receives inputs from many or most other regions, via indirect as well as direct pathways. Transactions within and between these regions establish a common mode of coherence shared by many different neuronal ensembles, analogous to the interference pattern produced by interactions between the initial local coherence patterns. The set of neuronal ensembles, linked in that characteristic common mode, constitutes a functional representational system for that particular event. A different event might be represented by the same set of neuronal ensembles, but with different common mode of coherence. The system thus possesses multipotentiality. Multipotentiality theory challenges the remediable and nonremediable injuries prophecies, arguing that only intensive remedial explorations can establish the nature of irreversible functional deficit. A brain injury can cause deafferentation of mode-specific afferent input from the damaged region into the remainder of the functional representational system.
