The brain can adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world with a wondrous efficiency honed over thousands of years of evolution. But despite decades of research, the mystery of how the brain achieves this remains elusive.
our New study published in the journal cellshows how neurons – the cells responsible for childhood memories, thoughts and emotions – coordinate their activity.
This is similar to employees at high-performing companies. Balancing individual skills and teamwork is the key to success. But how can we achieve balance?
As it turns out, the brain’s secret is surprisingly simple. This means allocating less than half (40% or less) of each cell’s effort to individual tasks.
Where does the rest of your efforts go? We aim for scalable teamwork.
And here’s an interesting fact. We found exactly the same tissue structure in the brains of five species, from fruit flies and nematodes to zebrafish, mice, and monkeys.
These species come from several branches of the Tree of Life, separated by one or more gaps. 1 billion years of evolutionThis suggests that we may have discovered the basic principles for optimal information processing. It also provides powerful lessons for today’s complex systems.
important midpoint
Our findings solve a long-standing problem. debate about the brain: Do neurons behave as follows? star player (respectively very professional and efficient) or do you prioritize? teamwork (Ensuring that the entire system works even if some elements are unstable)?
Answering this question was difficult. Until recently, neuroscience tools were limited to recording the activity of a few cells or millions of cells.
This is like trying to understand a large company by interviewing a few employees or only getting high-level department summaries. An important middle ground is missing.
However, as technology advances calcium imagingWe can now record signals from tens of thousands of cells simultaneously. Calcium imaging is a method of observing neural activity in real time using fluorescent sensors that emit light based on intracellular calcium levels.
frameborder=”0″allow=”Accelerometer; autoplay; Write clipboard; encrypted media; gyroscope; picture within picture; Web sharing”referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin”allowfullscreen>
Applying insights from our physics training to analyze large data sets, we discovered that brain activity unfolds in the following way. fractal layer.
Cells work together to build a larger, harmonious network, creating an organization where each scale reflects the above and below.
This structure answered the argument. The brain actually does. both.
Cleverly maintains a balance between individuality and teamwork. As neurons collaborate within increasingly larger networks, roughly half of their effort is spent on “individual” performance.
The brain can adapt quickly to change
To test whether there were inherent advantages to the brain’s structure, we ran computational simulations that revealed that this fractal hierarchy optimizes the flow of information throughout the brain.
This allows the brain to do what’s important: adapt to change. This ensures that the brain operates efficiently, performing tasks with minimal resources, while maintaining resilience by maintaining function even when neurons misfiring.
Whether navigating unfamiliar terrain or reacting to a sudden threat, the brain quickly processes new information and acts accordingly. Neurons continually adjust their coordination to keep the brain stable enough for deep thought, yet agile enough to respond to new challenges.
Multi-scale organizations, we discovered, allow for a variety of strategies.nerve cord“ – It works at different scales.
For example, we discovered that zebrafish movement relies on many neurons working in harmony. This resilient design ensures swimming continues smoothly even in fast-changing environments.
In contrast, mouse vision adapts to the cellular scale, allowing the precision needed to extract fine details from a scene. Here, if a few neurons miss key information, the entire perception can change, much like an optical illusion tricks the brain.
Our findings show that this fractal coordination of neuronal activity occurs across a broad evolutionary range, from vertebrates whose last common ancestor lived 450 million years ago to invertebrates a billion years ago.
This suggests that the brain has evolved to balance resilience and efficiency, allowing it to optimize information processing and adapt to new behavioral demands. Evolutionary continuity suggests that we have discovered fundamental design principles.
Basic principles?
These are exciting times as physics and neuroscience continue to interact to uncover universal laws of the brain that were shaped by natural selection over eons. Future research will be needed to determine how these principles might work in the human brain.
Our findings also hint at something bigger. This simple rule of individual focus and scalable teamwork may not just be a solution for the brain.
When elements are organized into a tiered network, resources can be shared efficiently and the system is robust against outages.
The best companies operate the same way. When new problems arise, individuals can respond without waiting for direction from managers, allowing them to resolve problems while receiving prompt support from the organization.
Achieving resilience and efficiency in complex systems may be a universal principle.
A basketball legend appears michael jordan He was right when he said, “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”
Brandon Robert MunnPostdoctoral researcher, University of Sydney
This article is republished from: conversation Under Creative Commons License. read original article.
