Does the human brain look like the universe?

An astrophysicist from the University of Bologna and a neurosurgeon from the University of Verona compared the network of neuronal cells in the human brain with the cosmic network of galaxies … and surprising similarities emerged.

In their article published in Borders in physics, Franco Vazza (astrophysicist at the University of Bologna) and Alberto Feletti (neurosurgeon at the University of Verona) studied the similarities between two of the most challenging and complex systems in nature: the cosmic network of galaxies and the network of neuronal cells in the human brain.

Despite the substantial difference in scale between the two networks (more than 27 orders of magnitude), their quantitative analysis, which lies at the intersection of cosmology and neurosurgery, suggests that different physical processes can build structures characterized by similar levels of complexity and autonomy organization.

The human brain functions thanks to its extensive neuronal network which is believed to contain around 69 billion neurons. On the other hand, the observable universe is composed of a cosmic network of at least 100 billion galaxies. Within both systems, only 30% of their masses are composed of galaxies and neurons. Within both systems, galaxies and neurons arrange themselves in long filaments or knots between filaments. Finally, within both systems, 70% of the mass or energy distribution is composed of components that play an apparently passive role: water in the brain and dark energy in the observable Universe.

Starting from the shared characteristics of the two systems, the researchers compared a simulation of the galaxy network with sections of the cerebral cortex and cerebellum. The goal was to observe how the fluctuations of matter spread on such different scales.

“We calculated the spectral density of both systems. This is a technique often used in cosmology to study the spatial distribution of galaxies,” explains Franco Vazza. “Our analysis showed that the distribution of the fluctuation within the neuronal network of the cerebellum on a scale from 1 micrometer to 0.1 mm follows the same progression as the distribution of matter in the cosmic network but, obviously, on a larger scale. ranging from 5 million to 500 million light years “.

The two researchers also calculated some parameters that characterize both the neuronal network and the cosmic network: the average number of connections in each node and the tendency to group multiple connections into relevant central nodes within the network.

“Once again, structural parameters have identified unexpected levels of agreement. Probably, the connectivity within the two networks evolves following similar physical principles, despite the remarkable and evident difference between the physical powers that regulate galaxies and neurons,” he adds. Alberto Feletti. “These two complex networks show more similarities than those shared between the cosmic network and a galaxy or a neuronal network and the interior of a neuronal body.”

The encouraging results of this pilot study are leading researchers to think that new and effective analytical techniques in both fields, cosmology and neurosurgery, will allow for a better understanding of the dynamics underlying the temporal evolution of these two systems.

Provided by University of Bologna