ABSTRACT
In the history of thinking about the brain, localisation of function is one of the oldest thoughts. As the resolution of anatomical studies has increased, it has stayed with us, to be applied to structures across the cortical sheet, ranging in scale from lobes and architectural fields, through areas, to compartments and columns. To give it another name, localisation can be thought of as segregation, the idea that any structurally (or neurochemically, or genetically) distinct module of tissue is likely to have a corresponding functional identity, a specialisation that distinguishes it from neighbouring structures. To anyone willing to accept the label “neuroanatomist”, this notion is probably axiomatic.
