The idea being that more fibers and increased efficiency between two regions means that you have more efficient processing between them.

"We found a world that we had never imagined. There are tens of millions of these objects even in a small speck of the brain, up through seven dimensions. In some networks, we even found structures with up to 11 dimensions." says lead researcher, neuroscientist Henry Markram from the EPFL institute in Switzerland.

"We found a remarkably high number and variety of high-dimensional directed cliques and cavities, which had not been seen before in neural networks, either biological or artificial," the team writes in the study.

"Algebraic topology is like a telescope and microscope at the same time. It can zoom into networks to find hidden structures, the trees in the forest, and see the empty spaces, the clearings, all at the same time." says one of the team, mathematician Kathryn Hess from EPFL.

"It is as if the brain reacts to a stimulus by building [and] then razing a tower of multi-dimensional blocks, starting with rods (1D), then planks (2D), then cubes (3D), and then more complex geometries with 4D, 5D, etc. The progression of activity through the brain resembles a multi-dimensional sandcastle that materializes out of the sand and then disintegrates." says one of the team, mathematician Ran Levi from Aberdeen University in Scotland.

Understanding the Brain

“A fundamental belief in neuroscience has been that neurons are digital devices. They either generate a spike or not. These results show that the dendrites do not behave purely like a digital device. Dendrites do generate digital, all-or-none spikes, but they also show large analog fluctuations that are not all or none. This is a major departure from what neuroscientists have believed for about 60 years.” said Mayank Mehta, the study’s senior author, in a UCLA press release.

“Many prior models assume that learning occurs when the cell bodies of two neurons are active at the same time. Our findings indicate that learning may take place when the input neuron is active at the same time that a dendrite is active — and it could be that different parts of dendrites will be active at different times, which would suggest a lot more flexibility in how learning can occur within a single neuron.” explained author Jason Moore in the press release.

First Neurostimulation, Then Application

“The Defense Department operates in a complex, interconnected world in which human skills such as communication and analysis are vital, and the Department has long pushed the frontiers of training to maximize those skills. DARPA’s goal with TNT is to further enhance the most effective existing training methods so the men and women of our Armed Forces can operate at their full potential.” Doug Weber, the TNT Program Manager, said in a DARPA press release.