[iamwizard]

Neurons don't do a substantial amount of self-organizing without hormone gradients and other external factors to cause them to organize. It's unfortunately inherently difficult to generalize the function and organization of neurons since there are not only hundreds, or more, distinct classes, but each class has thousands of inputs and outputs to the local and distant network that almost all have an important impact on their function, and the generation of this network of inputs and outputs and what factors affect their operation, is highly dependent on the exact subclass of neuron in question.

Mapping neural outputs of some small network to some operation is easy since all you're concerned with is the output, not the actual operation and organization of the network. Scientists could get macaques to play Pong using electrodes (like what Musk demonstrated with Neuralink) since, iirc, the 80s. This is also the exact reason that neural nets tell us nothing about the actual function of the brain.