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Information-devoid routes for scale-free neurodynamics

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Abstract

Neuroscientists are able to detect physical changes in information entropy in the available neurodata. However, the information paradigm is inadequate to describe fully nervous dynamics and mental activities such as perception. This paper suggests explanations to neural dynamics that provide an alternative to thermodynamic and information accounts. We recall the Banach–Tarski paradox (BTP), which informally states that when pieces of a ball are moved and rotated without changing their shape, a synergy between two balls of the same volume is achieved instead of the original one. We show how and why BTP might display this physical and biological synergy meaningfully, making it possible to model nervous activities. The anatomical and functional structure of the central nervous system’s nodes and edges makes it possible to perform a sequence of moves inside the connectome that doubles the amount of available cortical oscillations. In particular, a BTP-based mechanism permits scale-invariant nervous oscillations to amplify and propagate towards widely separated brain areas. Paraphrasing the BTP’s definition, we could state that: when a few components of a self-similar nervous oscillation are moved and rotated throughout the cortical connectome, two self-similar oscillations are achieved instead of the original one. Furthermore, based on topological structures, we illustrate how, counterintuitively, the amplification of scale-free oscillations does not require information transfer.

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Fig. 1

Modified from: Allen and Triantaphillidou (2009)

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Modified from: https://wiki.biac.duke.edu/biac:analysis:resting_pipeline

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nonlinear Science, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Circle, #311427, Denton, TX, 76203-5017, USA

    Arturo Tozzi

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Manitoba, 75A Chancellor’s Circle, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 5V6, Canada

    James F. Peters

  3. Department of Mathematics, Adıyaman University, 02040, Adıyaman, Turkey

    James F. Peters

  4. Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Adıyaman University, 02040, Adıyaman, Turkey

    James F. Peters

  5. Computational Intelligence Laboratory, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 5V6, Canada

    James F. Peters

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  1. Arturo Tozzi
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Tozzi, A., Peters, J.F. Information-devoid routes for scale-free neurodynamics. Synthese 199, 2491–2504 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02895-7

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