The Neocortex

The neocortex is the outer layer of the brain of all mammals. Female mammals nurse their young with milk secreted from the mammary glands. Mothers nourishing their young with their milk is symbolic of unconditional love resulting from feelings of oneness arising out of the right understadning of existence.

The function of the neocortex in humans is cognition including attention, focus, thought, awareness, mindfulness, volition, insight, learning, strategy, problem solving on one hand and emotion of love and compassion on the other. It has an influential role in sleep, memory, learning and language processing.

In primates, the neocortex has folds with deep grooves and ridges which allow its surface area to increase far beyond what could otherwise fit in the skull. In humans, the neocortex is 2 to 4 millimetres thick. The structure of the crebral cortex is layered with up to six cortical layers.

Based on the differences in lamination the neocortex can be classified into two parts, the large area of neocortex with six layers and the much smaller area of allocortex with less than six layers.

The cerebral function is much slower than that of the limbic system. Therefore, reference is made to it for response generation only in situations where time is not of essence. Time critical stimuli are dealt with by the limbic system without involvement of the neocortex. The function of the neocortex is associated with relaxation response while that of the limbic system with fight or flight response of the body.