New discovery about the brains of primates

The study was conducted by Maria Ercsey-Ravasz and Zoltan Toroczkai, working at the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science and Applications (iCeNSA), in conjunction with the Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, USA, and the group. The molecular psychiatrists in France, have revealed information that was not previously known about the brains of primates.

The results of the study were published in Cerebral Cortex , showing that the brain is characterized by an important neural network with consistent texture , among the functional areas of the cortex, responsible. The task of controlling activities such as listening, seeing, touch, motion control and other complex activities. Research shows that networks in the cortex with their characteristic properties can arise interconnected independently .

The brain of primates is a network
Connection between functional areas

Ercsey-Ravasz, Ph.D., and Toroczkai, professor of physics, analyzed data on monkey brains collected over a year by a group of 70 researchers led by Henry Kennedy in Lyon, France. Kennedy's team injected ink markers into a part of the brain and thin brain scans to track chemical movement through branches of nerve cells, called axons. neurotransmitter, the vegetative part of the cell. The team used specialized devices of the Interdisciplinary Center for Network Science and Applications (iCeNSA) in analyzing networks within the brain, as well as in other areas such as the spread of illness and social communication networks. Their analysis has identified the consistency of connections between regions of the brain.

Ercsey-Ravasz, in a study that was published in the press later, also proved that the greatest number of connections between the nearest areas, and the decrease in quantity in a model at a far distance The symmetry of animal to animal patterns suggests that connections are necessary, and fewer long-distance connections are likely to control switches that coordinate or regulate information exchange between brain regions. .

Research is part of a broader investigation of brain and intelligence functions, which have been under way in recent years to replace the research project " computer circuits and intelligence. "It has been abandoned in the 1970s." It turns out that the brain is not just a network of electrical circuits, it also contains complex technical elements , "Toroczkai said. " This is an amazingly complex system, and an explanation for why it is so difficult to clearly understand primates brain activity ."

The adult primate brain has 100 billion neurons with branches, connecting with more than 100 trillion points. According to a top-down approach, called the function of analyzing, identifying data packets within the brain, helping to transmit absolute data volumes. The monkey brain has 83 such areas, while the human brain has more than 120 areas. " What we found is a network of connections between functional areas ," Toroczkai said. " This is really important because now we have more details about how the brain connects to functional areas on a large scale. "

Toroczkai and Ercsey-Ravasz will continue to study in this area with international collaborators, aimed at understanding the information received through the senses and converting electrical impulses processed in the brain. " It looks like there are some types of algorithms that are generally running in the brain network ," he said. " The connection system is very strange and not what you expect. This is one of the main motivations for this research ."