The human brain is capable of creating structures in up to11 dimensions, according to scientists. According to a study published inFrontiers in Computational Neuroscience, the Human brain can deal and create inup to 11 dimensions.

According to the Blue Brain Project, the dimensions are notinterpreted in the traditional sense of a dimension, which most of usunderstand. Scientists found exciting new facts about the intricacy of thehuman brain as part of the Blue Brain Project.

Neuroscientist Henry Markram, director of Blue BrainProject and professor at the EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, said: “We found aworld that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects,even in a speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, weeven found structures with up to eleven dimensions.”

Traditional mathematical viewpoints were found to beinapplicable and unproductive once researchers studied the human brain.

The graphic tries to depict somethingthat can’t be seen – a multi-dimensional cosmos of structures and places. Acomputerised replica of a section of the neocortex, the brain’s most evolvedportion, may be found on the left. On the right, several forms of various sizesand geometries are used to illustrate constructions with dimensions rangingfrom one to seven and beyond. The central “black-hole” represents a collectionof multi-dimensional voids or cavities. In a new paper published in Frontiersin Computational Neuroscience, researchers from the Blue Brain Project claimthat groupings of neurons coupled into such holes provide the necessary linkbetween brain structure and function. Blue Brain Project is the source of thisimage.

“The mathematics usually applied to study networks cannotdetect the high-dimensional structures and spaces that we now see clearly,”Markram revealed.

Instead, scientists opted to investigate algebraictopology. Algebraic topology is a branch of mathematics that studies topologicalspaces using techniques from abstract algebra. In applying this approach intheir latest work, scientists from the Blue Brain Project were joined bymathematicians Kathryn Hess from EPFL and Ran Levi from Aberdeen University.

Professor Hess explained: “Algebraic topology is like atelescope and microscope at the same time. It can zoom into networks to findhidden structures – the trees in the forest – and see the empty spaces – theclearings – all at the same time.”

The researchers observed that brain structures are formedwhen a collection of neurons – cells in the brain that carry impulses – form aclique. Each neuron in the group is connected to every other neuron in thegroup in a unique way, resulting in the formation of a new enтιтy. The ‘dimension’of an item increases as the number of neurons in a clique increases.

The scientists used algebraic topography to model thearchitecture within a virtual brain they developed with the help of computers.They subsequently confirmed their findings by doing experiments on genuinebrain tissue. The researchers discovered that by adding inputs to the virtualbrain, cliques of increasingly HIGHER dimensions formed. In addition,investigators detected voids between the cliques.

Ran Levi from Aberdeen University said: “The appearance ofhigh-dimensional cavities when the brain is processing information means thatthe neurons in the network react to stimuli in an extremely organized manner.It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building then razing a tower ofmulti-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes(3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression ofactivity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle thatmaterializes out of the sand and then disintegrates.”

The new information on the human brain provides previouslyunseen insights into how the brain processes information. Scientists have said,however, that it is still unclear how the cliques and cavities arise in such aunique way.

The new research could someday help scientists solve one ofneuroscience’s greatest mysteries: where does the brain ‘store’ memories.

Reference(s): Peer-Reviewed Research Paper, Blue Brain Project