We previously knew that prediction is a ubiquitous function of the brain. But we didn’t know how or where predictions are made. With this discovery, we understood that most predictions occur inside neurons. A prediction occurs when a neuron recognizes a pattern, creates a dendrite spike, and is primed to spike earlier than other neurons. With thousands of distal synapses, each neuron can recognize hundreds of patterns that predict when the neuron should become active. Prediction is built into the fabric of the neocortex, the neuron.
