Is the neocortex really uniform , and do feedforward and feedback connections mean what we think they mean? Kathy Rockland challenges foundational assumptions about cortical organization with evidence that structure and function are more discrepant than textbooks suggest. Subscribe for more from the Convergent Science Network podcast series. Kathy Rockland is a neuroanatomist who has spent her career examining cortical connectivity at a level of detail that most theorists and imagers never encounter. In this interview, she delivers a series of provocative challenges to standard assumptions about how the neocortex is organized. Her first point is counterintuitive: the most striking property of cortical axons is not their specificity but their divergence. When you trace individual axons and examine their collateralization, the word that comes to mi ...