Human brains transmit information differently than animal brains
Published: Tuesday, Dec 19th 2023, 14:50
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Unlike animal brains, the human brain can transmit information via several parallel pathways. This was shown by a Lausanne research team comparing humans with mice and monkeys.
"Such parallel processing in human brains has already been suspected, but never before observed at the whole-brain level," study leader Alessandra Griffa was quoted as saying in a press release issued by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) on Tuesday.
The researchers from EPFL and the University Hospital of Vaud in Lausanne (Chuv) created a kind of road map of the brains of humans, mice and macaque monkeys. The results were published in the journal "Nature Communications".
Unique patterns in the human brain
"The novelty of our study is the use of multimodal data in a single model that combines two branches of mathematics: graph theory, which describes polysynaptic 'road maps', and information theory, which maps the transmission of information over roads," Griffa explained.
The researchers' approach showed that in the brains of mice and macaques, information was sent along a single "road", whereas in humans there were several parallel paths between the same source and the destination. The pattern of these parallel pathways was also so unique that the researchers were able to identify humans by their brain map.
Insights into evolution
According to the researchers, this finding could provide further insights into evolution. According to the experts, different communication patterns could be linked to the evolution of mammalian brain networks. The researchers speculate that these parallel information streams may support the ability to perform abstract functions specific to humans.
According to the university, they also want to use their approach in future studies to find out whether there is a connection between these parallel pathways in the human brain and the mental decline of certain people in old age.
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