The Calvinist Cortex: Penetrating Evolutionary Predestination Commentary on “Cortex, Countercurrent Context, and Dimensional Integration of Lifetime Memory” by Bjorn Merker

Abstract

Theories of everything can expect to encounter a high rate of skepticism. The “everything” that includes evolution of the brain, the fundamental connectivity, physiology and expandability of the cortex and all of personal experience is certainly in that class, but Merker’s “Cortex, countercurrent context, and dimensional integration of lifetime memory” counters skepticism surprisingly well. This paper opens up an organizational level of the brain to consideration in an evolutionary context in a way I have not seen before. I will address my commentary principally to the first part of the paper, which discusses the proliferation of the cortex and to lesser extent the hippocampus; the correlation of relative cortex size with longevity, and the central notion of the cortex as the storage site of long-term memory. Merker concentrates on the cortex, and the utility of its pattern of connectivity in long term storage in terms of contextualized personal history. The complementary work of my colleagues and myself has focused on developmental structure in the pattern of brain size changes, and the push-pull relationship of the relative size of the limbic system and isocortex in primates. Primates have somewhat altered a highly-conserved mammalian developmental schedule in order to increase the relative size of the