Neural binding

According to neural binding hypothesis, neurons within different neuronal assemblies fire in synchrony to unite different features of neuronal representations together. Neural oscillations have been suggested as the mechanism of binding.

The framework of operational architectonics of brain functioning (Fingelkurts An.A. and Fingelkurts Al.A. Operational architectonics of the human brain biopotential field: Towards solving the mind-brain problem. Brain and Mind. 2001. 2(3):261-296), whereby elementary operations are localized in discrete cortical and subcortical regions, and complex brain functions involve synchronous processing in a wide-spread network of neuronal assemblies, is a highly promising theory in modern neuroscience and cognition (a more thorough discussion with full reference to the source papers can be found in Fingelkurts An.A. and Fingelkurts Al.A. Making complexity simpler: Multivariability and metastability in the brain. International Journal of Neuroscience. 2004, 114(7):843-862).

Operational architectonics relies upon the theory of metastable dynamics. The notion of metastability was developed in the science of coordination dynamics by J. A. Scott Kelso and denotes a regime in which coordination between components in an organism (such as cortical regions) is a dynamic balance between segregation (autonomous processing) and integration (synchronous processing) such that neither process dominates or fully prescribes behavior, and both are necessary to generate cognitive phenomena. See, e.g., see Bressler SL, Kelso JAS. Cortical coordination dynamics and cognition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 5:26-36 (2001).