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An astrophysicist and neurosurgeon used quantitative analysis to compare two of the most complex systems in nature: the neural network in the human brain and the cosmic network of galaxies in the universe.
Franco Vazza and Alberto Feletti, an Italian astrophysicist and neurosurgeon, revealed striking similarities between the structure of the human brain and that of the universe by comparing enlarged images of a histological section of a network of neuronal cells in the brain with the network of galaxies. that make up our universe.
The two types of structures differ in scale by 27 orders of magnitude (i.e. the universe is a billion trillion trillion bigger than our brains), but the analysis of both revealed that different physical processes can lead to the appearance of structures. . similar in complexity and self-organization, says their study, published in Frontiers of Physics.
The starting point was to find similarities between the two. The human cerebellum has approximately 69 billion neurons, while the observable cosmic network contains more than 100 billion galaxies. Furthermore, both systems are organized in well-defined networks, with nodes (neurons in the brain, galaxies in the universe) connected by filaments.
Then we compared a) different enlargement sections of the human cortex and cerebellum, obtained from histological data b) simulated sections of the cosmic network from my ENZO simulations. pic.twitter.com/lYPv4dyROA
– Franco Vazza (@franco_vazza) November 16, 2020
Finally, both are apparently passive materials, with 70% mass or energy within each system consisting of elements that play only an indirect role in their internal structures. It’s about water in the case of the brain and dark energy in the observable universe.
After defining these similarities, the researchers compared the network of galaxies with enlarged images of sections of the human cerebral cortex and cerebellum.
Thanks to their study, they discovered the existence of similarities in the fluctuations in the density of matter between the brain and the cosmic network.
“Our analysis showed that the distribution of the fluctuation within the neural 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 scale of more than five million to 500 million light years, “noted astrophysicist Franco Vazza.
“Probably, the connectivity within the two networks evolves following similar physical principles, despite the obvious and evident difference between the physical powers that regulate galaxies and neurons,” explained neurosurgeon Feletti what he described as “unexpected levels of similarity. “.
The two scientists hope that their method will find application in both cosmology and neurosurgery and help better understand the dynamics of time evolution in both the brain and the universe.
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