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There is a whole universe in your brain, but have you ever thought that your brain could be a reflection of the vast universe out there?
The network of neurons in the brain and the network of galaxies in the cosmos may actually be reflections of each other. This is what you get when you put the minds of an astrophysicist and a neurosurgeon together. Besides being two of the most complex systems in nature, the number of neurons in your brain is eerily close to the number of galaxies in the observable universe. Neurons form in long filaments or knots between filaments, just like galaxies, and there is mass or energy that plays a seemingly passive role in both: water in the brain versus dark energy in the vacuum of space.
As unlikely as it may seem, astrophysicist Franco Vazza and neurosurgeon Alberto Feletti, who recently published a study on Borders in physics, they have fused their knowledge of the brain and the cosmos into something with the potential to advance both sciences more than they ever have. This study and the work it inspires in the future could revolutionize both cosmology and neurosurgery.
“Our research seeks to demonstrate that with shared statistical tools, both networks can be analyzed quantitatively, and we have found a good degree of structural similarity on a wide range of scales,” Vazza told SYFY WIRE. “Despite the obvious differences in their internal interactions, complex networks tend to evolve according to similar laws in order to save energy and fill space more efficiently, but that’s just the beginning of the research.”
The human brain and the structure of the universe are two of the most complex systems in nature. Everything in our brain is interconnected, from the molecular level to the networks of neurons and other cells that create even more complicated structures. So is everything in the universe (at least what we can see of it). It started on the molecular level when the Big Bang exploded like a firework out of nowhere, and those molecules created larger molecules that continued to accumulate and eventually became stars, planets, asteroids, comets and other objects born of swirling discs of gas and dust. Many of these objects have become their own star systems and groups of star systems have formed entire galaxies.
Now think about this. There is a network of around 69 billion neurons in your brain. There are at least 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. 70 percent of the brain is water while the same percent of interstellar material is dark energy. By studying the spectral density, or how the power in a signal as opposed to its frequency, Vazza and Feletti found that the fluctuations in the cosmic network are on the same scale as those distributed within the network of neurons in the cerebellum, which for the more it voluntarily nourishes movements, balance, coordination and posture.
While the proportions may not always be exact, they are still a little scary. There is still a huge difference despite all these possibly creepy mirror images.
“The biggest difference between our brains and the universe is how they process their information content,” Vazza said. “In the case of the cosmic web, this is the 3D structure of galaxies. In the human brain, it is recorded through the local connectivity of neurons and at a very different rate. Some qualitative estimates suggest that the human brain has computational power about 10-17 times faster than the cosmic network, which means that the local organization of the human brain can be changed much faster than galaxies can. “
It’s hard to say whether it’s more charming or even scarier. It is impossible to deny that both networks, the one in our heads and the one above our heads, are both organizations of clusters and nodes, whether they are molecules and neurons or star systems and galaxies. Vazza performed simulations that revealed, among all that makes our brains a reflection of something much larger and almost unfathomable, something unreal. There is actually less similarity between the universe and a single galaxy, or the brain and a single neuron, than there is between the brain and the universe as systems.
Finding parallels between the brain and the last frontier has shed light on things that each branch of science can borrow from the other. The similarities between such complex networks could also mean incredible discoveries, because if something about the universe can have implications for something in the brain or vice versa, there could be major scientific advancement depending on the results of simulations and experiments.
“Our work exposes how such diverse systems (indeed sitting at opposite ends of cosmic scales) can evolve in complex ways in which physical laws combine to evolve macro objects, or in this case networks of events,” he said. Vazza. “We hope this triggers new research in the near future.”
This should blow your mind.
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