Authors: Rudolf Nieuwenhuys
Publish Date: 2009/10/21
Volume: 214, Issue: 1, Pages: 79-
Abstract
In his famous book ‘On Growth and Form’ D’Arcy Thompson demonstrated that the shapes of related animals or parts thereof can be transformed into each other by a simple graphical procedure called the method of coordinates In this procedure an object is inscribed in a net of Cartesian coordinates It appeared that the shape of related objects could be characterized by means of simple harmonious deformations of the initial orthogonal system of coordinates Here I demonstrate that 1 the central nervous system contains a builtin natural coordinate system 2 differences in shape and proportion of cross sections through the brain stem of various mammals can be easily analyzed with the aid of this coordinate system and 3 sets of structures in the mammalian brain stem which are closely related to the neocortex but form part of entirely different functional systems form spatially constrained complexes and have the capacity to expand jointly and harmoniously within these complexes
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