Introduction -- Vernon Benjamin Mountcastle -- Modular organization of the prefrontal cortex: the legacy of Patricia Goldman-Rakic -- The types of functional and structural subdivisions of cortical areas -- The types of functional and structural subdivisions of cortical areas -- The minicolumn in comparative context -- Unusual cortical lamination patterns in the sengis (elephant shrews) do not appear to influence the presence of cortical minicolumns -- Active inference, predictive coding and cortical architecture -- Columnar organization of the motor cortex: direction of movement -- Discrete, place-defined macrocolumns in somatosensory cortex: lessons for modular organization of the cerebral cortex -- Prefrontal cortical microcircuits for executive control of behavior -- Cytoarchitectural modules: functional specialisation and disruption in neuropsychiatric disorders -- The relevance of subplate modifications to connectivity in the cerebral cortex of individuals with autism spectrum disorders.-The minicolumnopathy of autism -- Clinical applications of electrophysiological approaches based on cortical modularity in autism -- Index.