This discovery has the potential to advance both computing and our understanding of the brain.
Scientists from the University of Sydney and Fudan University have discovered that human brain signals travel through the outer layers of neural tissue and are arranged in a naturally swirling spiral.
It was published in the magazine nature human behaviorthis study suggests that these widespread helical patterns, seen both at rest and during cognitive activity, play a role in organizing brain function and cognitive processes.
Senior author Poulin Gong, associate professor in the School of Science’s Department of Physics, said the discovery could advance powerful computing machines inspired by the complex workings of the human brain.
This discovery opens new avenues for understanding how the brain works and provides valuable insight into the fundamental functions of the human brain. Examining the role played by brain diseases such as dementia could help medical researchers understand their effects.
Visual reproduction of the brain’s spiral across the cortex.Credit: Gong et al.
Associate Professor Gong, a member of the Physics Complex Systems Research Group, said: “Our research provides insight into how helices are involved in cognitive processing, which could lead to new insights into brain dynamics and function.” “This suggests that understanding could be greatly improved.”
“These spiral patterns exhibit complex and intricate dynamics as they move across the surface of the brain, rotating around a central point known as the phase singularity.
“Just as vortices interact in turbulent flow, helices engage in complex interactions and play an important role in organizing complex activities in the brain.
“The complex interactions between multiple coexisting spirals allow neural computations to be performed in a distributed parallel fashion, potentially resulting in surprising computational efficiencies.”
Eben Hsu, a doctoral student and lead author of the research paper at the Graduate School of Physics, said that the location of the spirals on the cortex allows them to connect activities in different parts of the brain and networks, and that they can act as a bridge for communication. He said it could work. Many spirals are large enough to cover multiple networks.
The cortex of the brain, also known as the cerebral cortex, is the outermost layer of the brain responsible for many complex cognitive functions such as perception, memory, attention, language, and consciousness.
“One important feature of these brain spirals is that they often appear at boundaries that separate different functional networks in the brain,” Xu said.
“Through their rotational movements, they effectively coordinate the flow of activity between these networks.
“In our research, we observed that these interacting brain spirals can flexibly reconfigure brain activity during a variety of tasks, including natural language processing and working memory. This is due to the rotation of the spirals. It is achieved by changing direction.”
Scientists gleaned findings from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyzed the brain scans of 100 young people by applying techniques used to understand the complex waveforms of turbulence.
Neuroscience has traditionally focused on interactions between neurons to understand brain function. To understand the mystery, a growing field of science is focusing on larger processes within the brain.
“By unraveling the mysteries of brain activity and uncovering the mechanisms that govern its regulation, we are moving closer to unlocking the full potential of understanding cognition and brain function,” Associate Professor Gong said. .
Reference: “Interacting spiral wave patterns underlie complex brain dynamics and are associated with cognitive processing,” by Yiben Xu, Xian Long, Jianfeng Feng, and Pulin Gong, June 15, 2023. nature human behavior.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-023-01626-5