Vast amounts of detailed information can be compressed into the tiny tissue of neurons with some very clever math, according to a rat brain study by researchers in the US.
These newly discovered patterns of brain cell arrangement, illustrating mental representations of physical space, not only show how our brains store certain types of data, but can also provide insight into cases where memory and mapping tools fail.
Step into a room for the first time, and your brain fires up neurons that quickly map the space. These place cells are not necessarily designed to reflect the room, but their coordinated blinking still serves as a way to position yourself in the physical area.
These cells are organized in networks called place fields, and these cells often reorganize as we become accustomed to space, contributing to an ever richer network of cells that pulsates with interconnected responses as the space around you becomes more familiar. .
How this hierarchy of interconnected activities develops and operates has so far remained largely speculative, at least from a mathematical point of view.
In a new study led by computational neuroscientist Tatiana Sharpy of the Salk Institute for Biological Research, researchers examined neuronal activity in a part of the rat hippocampus that is critical for spatial memory.
Using a technique previously developed to study place cells in mice as they run through mazes, the researchers had a handful of adult rodents walk their steps on a straight 48-meter (157-foot) track, during which their neural activity was recorded. completed.
There are several ways in which messages can be sequenced through the network, depending on physical proximity or the way different cells respond to each other.
And the best model for analyzing the hierarchy of signals in the network of place cells in mice was a kind of geometry described by a hyperbole, which, ironically, is not the simplest geometry that our brain can visualize.
Imagine, if you like, a typical office building with the boss upstairs sitting alone on his own floor. CEOs below the president have posh offices. Below them, middle managers are limited to slightly smaller wings. Below, on a floor filled with booths, a whole mass of workers crowded.
This “linear” hierarchy quickly runs out of room for everyone as you go down the floors and add more sections.
However, in an office tower built using hyperbolic geometry, there will be no problem placing new sections on the lower floors, which are getting bigger and bigger, with a different set of bases at intersecting corners, forming lines that connect to different components.
And while we could use the example above to represent a hyperbolic hierarchy in flat space, in full-dimensional reality, all of these triangles would be the same size (yes, trying to imagine that would blow your mind). So, if it were a piece of material, the outer edges would curve along with its extra circumference, like a floppy hat.
Hyperbolic hierarchies use similar mathematics to describe the relationships between different points of activity in a series of processes, allowing us to more effectively discern the details of distances and objects in our minds when we imagine ourselves in space.
Here, the mathematical researchers explored how small fields of place cells are rapidly generated when mice are placed in a new space, turning into more complex fields according to a logarithmic expansion over time.
Recent studies have shown that the olfactory systems in biology also follow a hyperbolic hierarchy, allowing animals to classify odors in much more complex and varied ways than the linear odor grouping method.
Measuring these effects in humans could provide information for disease models, especially in areas of neuroscience related to memory and spatial perception.
This study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
Source: Science Alert
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