The term cortical plate refers to the embryonic precursor of cerebral cortex. It gives rise to all layers of neocortex and allocortex, except perhaps layer 6b in the rodent. In the Functional CNS Model - Rat it refers to the sum of structures in the mature brain that are derived from the cortical plate, i.e., as a synonym of cerebral cortex excepting layer 6b in the rat ( Swanson-2004 ) and mouse ( Dong-2004 ).