The importance and whether there is any function of the column is not without controversy, it may well be an artifact of what tools were used in the early days.

The importance and whether there is any function of the column is not without controversy, it may well be an artifact of what tools were used in the early days. The brain is very flexible in its organization and attempts at organizational structures such as columns aren't very consistent even across individuals of the same species: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569491/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569491/