Scientists Discover That Our Brains Can Process The World

In 11 Dimensions
Neuro-scientists have used a classic branch of maths in a totally new way to
peer into the structure of our brains. What theyve discovered is that the
brain is full of multi-dimensional geometrical structures operating in as
many as 11 dimensions.

Were used to thinking of the world from a 3-D perspective, so this may
sound a bit tricky, but the results of this new study could be the next major
step in understanding the fabric of the human brain the most complex
structure we know of.

This latest brain model was produced by a team of researchers from the
Blue Brain Project, a Swiss research initiative devoted to building a
supercomputer-powered reconstruction of the human brain.

The team used algebraic topology, a branch of mathematics used to

describe the properties of objects and spaces regardless of how they change
shape. They found that groups of neurons connect into cliques, and that
the number of neurons in a clique would lead to its size as a high-
dimensional geometric object.

We found a world that we had never imagined, says lead researcher,

neuroscientist Henry Markram from the EPFL institute in Switzerland.
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.

Human brains are estimated to have a staggering 86 billionneurons, with

multiple connections from each cell webbing in every possible direction,
forming the vast cellular network that somehow makes us capable of
thought and consciousness.
With such a huge number of connections to work with, its no wonder we
still dont have a thorough understanding of how the brains neural network
operates. But the new mathematical framework built by the team takes us
one step closer to one day having a digital brain model.

To perform the mathematical tests, the team used a detailed model of the
neocortex the Blue Brain Project team published back in 2015. The
neocortex is thought to be the most recently evolved part of our brains, and
the one involved in some of our higher-order functions like cognition and
sensory perception.

After developing their mathematical framework and testing it on some

virtual stimuli, the team also confirmed their results on real brain tissue in
rats.

According to the researchers, algebraic topology provides mathematical

tools for discerning details of the neural network both in a close-up view at
the level of individual neurons, and a grander scale of the brain structure as
a whole.

By connecting these two levels, the researchers could discern high-

dimensional geometric structures in the brain, formed by collections of
tightly connected neurons (cliques) and the empty spaces (cavities)
between them.

We found a remarkably high number and variety of high-dimensional

directed cliques and cavities, which had not been seen before in neural
networks, either biological or artificial, the team writes in the study.

Algebraic topology is like a telescope and microscope at the same time,

says one of the team, mathematician Kathryn Hess from EPFL.

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.

Those clearings or cavities seem to be critically important for brain

function. When researchers gave their virtual brain tissue a stimulus, they
saw that neurons were reacting to it in a highly organised manner.

It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building [and] 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, says one of the team, mathematician Ran Levi from Aberdeen
University in Scotland.

The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-

dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then
disintegrates.
These findings provide a tantalizing new picture of how the brain processes
information, but the researchers point out that its not yet clear what makes
the cliques and cavities form in their highly specific ways.

And more work will be needed to determine how the complexity of these
multi-dimensional geometric shapes formed by our neurons correlates with
the complexity of various cognitive tasks.

But this is definitely not the last well be hearing of insights that algebraic
topology can give us on this most mysterious of human organs the brain.

The study was published in Frontiers of Computational Neuroscience.