/sci/ - Science & Math » Thread #11550626

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ITT: Things you never understood

Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 08:20:31 2020 No.11550626 View Reply Original Report

Quoted By: >>11550642 >>11550665

I'll start, try to answer the post above you if you're confident.

I understand that the brain is wrinkled to have more surface area but why is brain power determined by surface area and not volume?

Wouldn't a centimeter cubed of neurons be as valuable evolutionarily as a centimeter squared? Or is this just a very well-accepted urban legend?

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 2020 08:26:54 No.11550642 Report

Quoted By: >>11550688

>>11550626

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/04/09/frenchman_ejected_fighter_jet_retirement_jolly/

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 2020 08:37:26 No.11550665 Report

Quoted By: >>11550688

>>11550626
>I understand that the brain is wrinkled to have more surface area but why is brain power determined by surface area and not volume?

At the risk of being too reductionist, it's determined a lot by the number of neurons and how many synapses there are. To fit more layers of brain cells in a finite-volume skull, the brain is folded up on itself.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 2020 08:48:26 No.11550688 Report

Quoted By: >>11550696 >>11550702

>>11550642

whoops this was meant for a different thread.

>>11550665

No, you can't be too reductionist here. I'm still struggling to understand, Neurons aren't or I don't see why they would have to be flat, in fact we know the inside of the brain still has active structures, even if a lot more of it's function is to connect other areas then the cortex.

Neurons are 3-Dimensional structures, aren't they? What I'm asking is why is it surface area dependent and not volume dependent? Is there some limiting factor that prevents the depth of our neocortex from being more than approximately the width of a brain fold?

Anonymous

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Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 2020 08:54:28 No.11550696 Report

Quoted By: >>11550705

>>11550688
it's because the internal part of the brain it's basically wiring between neurons, and we need a fuck lot of connections to achieving a useful bandwidth.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 2020 09:02:36 No.11550702 Report

Quoted By: >>11550705

>>11550688
>No, you can't be too reductionist here. I'm still struggling to understand, Neurons aren't or I don't see why they would have to be flat, in fact we know the inside of the brain still has active structures, even if a lot more of it's function is to connect other areas then the cortex.

It's because of the organization of the cortex and how it develops. There are different layers, and the cortex gains new neurons during development by dividing the cells in the innermost layer and having them migrate to the outermost layer.

Imagine you have a blanket inside of a box. If the blanket's surface area keeps getting bigger and bigger, it needs to fold to stay in the confines of the box.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 2020 09:06:44 No.11550705 Report

Quoted By: >>11550706

>>11550696
>>11550702

I finally found an answer, yours combined with google; the brain is folded in order to short the distance between neurons, increasing bandwidth and reducing delay. Even though it would be quicker for signals to travel if the brain had no folds; which effectively serve as valleys signals have to cross first, connectivity between distinct regions is more important than uni-directional connectivity.

The brain is conceptually like a net like a flattened box with distinct regions, folded over a high connectivity "oblong"

Pure conjecture here but I get the feeling that the folding also serves the purpose of reducing crosstalk / noise by deliberately dampening signal conductivity / induction between folds, allowing regions to be more functionally divided. Neurons are actually quite noisy, if you close your eyes in a very dark environment, some of the static "noise" you see is actually neurons firing from your eyeball's body heat IIRC.

Anonymous

Anonymous Fri 10 Apr 2020 09:08:59 No.11550706 Report

Quoted By:

>>11550705
>the brain is folded in order to short the distance between neurons, increasing bandwidth and reducing delay

Well so, I should clarify that signals aren't sent through the 'outside' part of a sulcus. You can physically flatten out a gyrus on a brain without breaking any connections.

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