Scientists from Switzerland, together with IBM experts, have succeeded in discovering structures in the human brain that exist not only in four or five dimensions, but even in eleven dimensions. Using such multidimensional structures, our brain processes incoming information.

Experts from the Swiss University of Technology in Lausanne and their IBM colleagues have been modeling the human brain for more than a decade. In 2015, they managed to create a model of a small piece of a sensitive brain system, the volume of which does not exceed 0,3 mm³. Such functional units are called neocortex columns, and in them the synapses between neurons are much stronger than with neurons outside this region. To create the model, the researchers had to investigate and describe eight million connections between nerve cells and record the activity of 14 neurons.

To describe the shape of a single column, the researchers used results obtained several years ago and newly discovered schemes. And they came up with something closer to science fiction; researchers have been able to discover structures in the brain that exist in the 4th or 5th dimension, some as early as the 11th.

It is quite obvious that the human eye is not able to see these structures. They have been discovered using algebraic topology, a branch of mathematics whose equations make it possible to describe objects in space that exist in multiple dimensions.

The published article talks about the formation of multidimensional structures in those cases where neurons interconnect with each other, in a specific way. The shape of their grouping is determined by the arrangement of neurons. The more nerve cells in the structure, the more complex its shape.

According to Blue Brain project leader neurologist Henry Markram, there are tens of millions of such multidimensional objects in a small piece of the brain. The discovery of these multidimensional formations explains why it has been so difficult to examine the brain and create a model so far.

Researchers used mathematical tools that were not adapted to multidimensional structures. Thanks to Ran Levi of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and Kathryn Hess of Lausanne - two topology experts - they now have the opportunity to describe multidimensional neural structures.

Upon receiving the stimulus stimulus, the brain begins to build a structure composed of cubes, rods, and patches and more complex multidimensional units. They fall apart at the same rate with which they are built, and all these processes proceed according to strict order.

Today, scientists are faced with the question of whether similar neural structures are related to the storage of information in our memories, and whether their complexity depends on the complexity of the tasks ahead.