Understanding the science of the human brain has remained one of the most complex challenges for our scientists. However, scientists have conducted a new study to understand how the human brain works. The researchers named this study The Blue Brain Project and they developed a model which best describes a multidimensional universe inside the human brain.
The new study is suggesting that the human brain does not process our world in only two or three dimensions. However, the human brain tends to understand the visible world up to 11 dimensions. Researchers were astonished by this discovery. But it helped them to understand why some of our sophisticated technologies such as functional MRIs cannot confidently describe what is going on in the human brain.
Some scientists have previously represented human brain activity as a three-dimensional image in a functional MRI. They noticed that it changes over time. Based on this new study which suggests that the brain is actually working in 11 dimensions, scientists could say that our brain could understand the entire universe and a multitude of other dimensions.
How The Scientists Came up With this discovery of a multidimensional universe inside the human brain
A team of scientists led by a group of researchers at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland discovered the strange unknown complexities of the brain while researching the Blue Brain Project. The scientists began to work on this project to create a biologically accurate recreation of the human brain.
However, they ended up making a fascinating discovery that will change the way we think about the brain. While working on the Blue Brain Project, the team built simulations of the brain and deployed an advanced form of mathematics known as algebraic topology to their models. The applied algebraic topology to their computer-generated models enabled the scientists to come up with a satisfactory conclusion of discovering a multidimensional universe inside the human brain.
“Algebraic topology is like a telescope and microscope at the same time. It can zoom into networks to find hidden structures — the trees in the forest — and see the empty spaces — the clearings — all at the same time,” said study author Kathryn Hess.
During the research, Hess and her team discovered how the human brain processes visual information by creating multi-dimensional neurological structures known as cliques. These cliques were found to disintegrate as soon as they were understood. The team also discovered that the cliques have up to 11 different dimensions and are often formed in holes of space known as cavities. Immediately the human brain learns about visual information, and the clique and cavity vanish at that instant.
What the Scientists that Participate in this Research Think About the Discovery
The idea of a multidimensional universe inside the human brain may appear strange to many people. However, researchers that participated in this research were all fascinated with the discovery. Researcher Ran Levi, a member of the research team shares his thought as follows.
“The appearance of high-dimensional cavities when the brain is processing information means that the neurons in the network react to stimuli in an extremely organized manner,” said researcher Ran Levi. “It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates,” he concludes.
Henry Markram, who served as the director of the Blue Brain Project, explained how multi-dimensional structures could be.
“The mathematics usually applied to study networks cannot detect the high-dimensional structures and spaces that we now see clearly,” said Henry. “We found a world that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to 11 dimensions.”
The research was published in the journal Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience and you can check it out.
Conclusion
Scientific discoveries like this one often open a door for more findings. Scientists will rely on the data obtained from this study in advancing their studies about the human brain and the Cosmos we live in. What do you think about this fascinating discovery?
