How Spiral Brain Signal Patterns Organize Cognitive Activity

summary: Researchers have discovered a spiral brain signal pattern on the human cortex. This study shows that these patterns, observed in both resting and cognitive states, play an important role in organizing brain activity and cognitive processing.

This finding suggests that helices facilitate complex interactions to increase computational efficiency, and could greatly advance our understanding of human brain function and dynamics. This could pave the way for powerful computing machines inspired by the complex workings of the brain.

important facts:

1. The results of this study were obtained from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans of 100 young people, and the researchers used methods commonly used to understand the complex waveforms of turbulence. analyzed.
2. An important feature of these brain helices is that they often appear at boundaries separating different functional networks in the brain. These spirals effectively coordinate the flow of activity between networks through their rotational motion.
3. These interacting brain spirals allow flexible reconstruction of brain activity during a variety of tasks, including natural language processing and working memory. This is achieved by changing the direction of rotation.

sauce: University of Sydney

Scientists at the University of Sydney and Fudan University have discovered that human brain signals travel through the outer layers of nervous tissue and are arranged in a naturally spiraling spiral.

The study was published today. nature human behaviorshowing that these ubiquitous spirals are brain signals observed over the cortex in both resting and cognitive states, and help organize brain activity and cognitive processing.

Senior author Puling Gong, associate professor of physics at the Faculty of Science, said the discovery could advance powerful computing machines inspired by the complex workings of the human brain.

This discovery opens new avenues for understanding how the brain works and provides valuable insight into the fundamental functions of the human brain.that Examining the role brain diseases play may help medical researchers understand the impact of brain diseases such as dementia.

Associate Professor Gong, a member of the Complex Systems Research Group in Physics, said, “Our work has implications for brain dynamics and function, given the insight into how helices are involved in cognitive processing. It suggests that understanding could be significantly enhanced.”

“These spiral patterns exhibit complex and intricate dynamics, moving across the surface of the brain while rotating around a central point known as the phase singularity.

“Similar to how vortices act in turbulence, spirals interact in complex ways and play an important role in orchestrating the complex activities of the brain.

“The complex interplay between multiple coexisting spirals could allow neural computations to be performed in a distributed parallel fashion, yielding surprising computational efficiency gains.”

PhD student Eben Shu, lead author of the Physics Graduate study, said: cortical spiral This allows us to connect the activities of different sections and networks of the brain, potentially acting as a communication bridge. Many of the spirals are large enough to cover multiple networks.

The brain cortex, also known as the cerebral cortex, is the outermost layer of the brain responsible for many complex cognitive functions such as perception, memory, attention, language, and consciousness.

“One of the key features of these brain spirals is that they often appear at boundaries separating different functional networks in the brain,” Xu said.

“Through their rotational motion, they effectively coordinate the flow of activity between these networks.

“Our research shows that these interacting brain spirals enable flexible reconfiguration of brain activity during a variety of tasks, including natural language processing and working memory, which can be achieved by changing the direction of rotation. I observed.”

Scientists collected and analyzed study results from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans of 100 young people. Adapt techniques used to understand complex wave patterns in turbulence.

Neuroscience has traditionally focused on interactions between neurons to understand brain function. To understand that mystery, a growing scientific field is looking to larger processes in the brain.

“By unraveling the mysteries of brain activity and revealing the mechanisms that govern its coordination, we are closer to unlocking the full potential of our understanding of cognition and brain function,” said Gong. .

About this neuroscience research news

author: Philip Richie
sauce: University of Sydney
contact: Philip Ritchie – University of Sydney
image: Image credited to Neuroscience News

Original research: open access.
“Interacting spiral waveform patterns underlie complex brain mechanics and are relevant to cognitive processingby Puring Gong et al. nature human behavior

overview

Interacting spiral waveform patterns underlie complex brain mechanics and are relevant to cognitive processing

Large-scale activity in the human brain exhibits rich and complex patterns, but the spatiotemporal dynamics of these patterns and their functional role in cognition remain unclear.

Here, by characterizing hour-to-hour variations in human cortical functional magnetic resonance imaging signals, we show that helical rotational waveforms (brain spirals) are widespread in both resting and cognitive task states. rice field.

These brain spirals propagate throughout the cortex while rotating around the phase singularity center, giving rise to spatiotemporal activity dynamics with nonstationary characteristics. Characteristics such as the direction of rotation and position of these brain helices are task-related and can be used to classify different cognitive tasks.

We also demonstrate that multiple interacting brain spirals are involved in coordinating the correlated activation and deactivation of dispersed functional areas. This mechanism allows flexible reconfiguration of task-driven activity flows between bottom-up and top-down directions during cognitive processing.

Our findings suggest that brain spirals organize the complex spatiotemporal dynamics of the human brain and are functionally correlated with cognitive processing.