Figure 5.

Interactions between gating mechanisms. Illustration of how individual gating mechanisms such as those depicted in Figure 4, can be linked together in a structure capable of producing a sequence of gating events in the cortex. Small numbers within the symbols of the figure indicate the order of the neurons’ firing in the system. The activity of cortical neurons in sets A and C (0) is confined to their respective area until an external signal (1) triggers the gate keeping mechanism of loop 1 (2). As the gate of loop 1 opens up, neurons in B are now free to respond to input from A, and start to fire (3). Simultaneously, the gating signal of loop 1 activates the gate keeping mechanism of loop 2 (4), finally allowing information harbored in C (0) to trigger neurons located in D (5).