The brain's size, curves and grooves may play an important role in its function, perhaps even more than the connections between neurons, research suggests.
Leigh Henningham / Monash Turner InstituteThough much about the brain remains a mystery, scientists have long surmised that our thoughts, feelings and behavior are the result of billions of interconnected neurons that transmit signals to each other, thereby enabling communication between regions of the brain.
The comparison showed that the new model provided a more accurate reconstruction of the brain activity shown in the MRI scans and brain activity maps than the prior model. David Van Essen, a neuroscience professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the brain shape theory has been floated for more than a decade. But most researchers, he said, still subscribe to the classical hypothesis: that each of the brain's nearly 100 billion neurons, or nerve cells, has an axon, which functions like a wire to carry information to other neurons, and that enables brain activity.
"What the work is showing is that the shape has a stronger influence, but it’s not saying that connectivity is not important," he said. In theory, Pang said, the speed at which traveling waves spread to different regions of the brain might affect how people process information. That, in turn, could contribute to patterns of brain activity associated with diseases like schizophrenia or depression.
Van Essen raised several concerns about the study, including the fact that the researchers' models are based on an average of the shapes of participants' brains. According to Van Essen, that approach glosses over dramatic differences in patterns of surface folds from one brain to the next.
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