Fig.1: Micro-schema structure.
Most of the cortical regions in the FARS model are implemented as a number of micro-schemas. Conceptually, a micro-schema (Fig.1), or referred to as a column, is an atomic computation unit composed of a set of four leaky integrator neurons:
For more details on the motivation and functional structure of micro-schemas, please refer to "Micro-schemas: An Intermediate Computational Mechansim" in Chapter 5 of Fagg's thesis.
Fig.2: Actual column.
In the actual coding of the model, columns are implemented a little differently (Fig.2).
A column still has the four basic functional units (priming, support, signal/sensory, output). However, the priming unit and the support unit are implemented in a structure called gate, and a column can have a number of gates. The output of the support units in these gates are collected by a collector unit. The collector unit and the sensory unit together determine whether the output unit should fire.
For more details on the column dynamics and implementation, please refer to: