For years, the brain has been thought of as a biological computer that
processes information through traditional circuits, whereby data zips
straight from one cell to another. While that model is still accurate, a
new study led by Salk Professor Thomas Albright and Staff Scientist Sergei
Gepshtein shows that there's also a second, very different way that the
brain parses information: through the interactions of waves of neural
activity. The findings, published in Science Advances on April 22, 2022,
help researchers better understand how the brain processes information.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-ocean-brain-interacting-key.html

"We now have a new understanding of how the computational machinery of the
brain is working," says Albright, the Conrad T. Prebys Chair in Vision
Research and director of Salk's Vision Center Laboratory. "The model helps
explain how the brain's underlying state can change, affecting people's
attention, focus, or ability to process information."

Researchers have long known that waves of electrical activity exist in the
brain, both during sleep and wakefulness. But the underlying theories as
to how the brain processes information—particularly sensory information,
like the sight of a light or the sound of a bell—have revolved around
information being detected by specialized brain cells and then shuttled
from one neuron to the next like a relay.

This traditional model of the brain, however, couldn't explain how a
single sensory cell can react so differently to the same thing under
different conditions. A cell, for instance, might become activated in
response to a quick flash of light when an animal is particularly alert,
but will remain inactive in response to the same light if the animal's
attention is focused on something else.

Gepshtein likens the new understanding to wave-particle duality in physics
and chemistry—the idea that light and matter have properties of both
particles and waves. In some situations, light behaves as if it is a
particle (also known as a photon). In other situations, it behaves as if
it is a wave. Particles are confined to a specific location, and waves are
distributed across many locations. Both views of light are needed to
explain its complex behavior.

"The traditional view of brain function describes brain activity as an
interaction of neurons. Since every neuron is confined to a specific
location, this view is akin to the description of light as a particle,"
says Gepshtein, director of Salk's Collaboratory for Adaptive Sensory
Technologies. "We've found that in some situations, brain activity is
better described as interaction of waves, which is similar to the
description of light as a wave. Both views are needed for understanding
the brain."

Some sensory cell properties observed in the past were not easy to explain
given the "particle" approach to the brain. In the new study, the team
observed the activity of 139 neurons in an animal model to better
understand how the cells coordinated their response to visual information.
In collaboration with physicist Sergey Savel'ev of Loughborough
University, they created a mathematical framework to interpret the
activity of neurons and to predict new phenomena.

The best way to explain how the neurons were behaving, they discovered,
was through interaction of microscopic waves of activity rather than
interaction of individual neurons. Rather than a flash of light activating
specialized sensory cells, the researchers showed how it creates
distributed patterns: waves of activity across many neighboring cells,
with alternating peaks and troughs of activation—like ocean waves.

When these waves are being simultaneously generated in different places in
the brain, they inevitably crash into one another. If two peaks of
activity meet, they generate an even higher activity, while if a trough of
low activity meets a peak, it might cancel it out. This process is called
wave interference.

"When you're out in the world, there are many, many inputs and so all
these different waves are generated," says Albright. "The net response of
the brain to the world around you has to do with how all these waves
interact."

To test their mathematical model of how neural waves occur in the brain,
the team designed an accompanying visual experiment. Two people were asked
to detect a thin faint line ("probe") located on a screen and flanked by
other light patterns. How well the people performed this task, the
researchers found, depended on where the probe was. The ability to detect
the probe was elevated at some locations and depressed at other locations,
forming a spatial wave predicted by the model.

"Your ability to see this probe at every location will depend on how
neural waves superimpose at that location," says Gepshtein, who is also a
member of Salk's Center for the Neurobiology of Vision. "And we've now
proposed how the brain mediates that."

The discovery of how neural waves interact is much more far-reaching than
explaining this optical illusion. The researchers hypothesize that the
same kinds of waves are being generated—and interacting with each other—in
every part of the brain's cortex, not just the part responsible for the
analysis of visual information. That means waves generated by the brain
itself, by subtle cues in the environment or internal moods, can change
the waves generated by sensory inputs.

This may explain how the brain's response to something can shift from day
to day, the researchers say.

### - 'brain-waves' huh?? (sounds just about right heh) ;)

the duel-nature of light being both particle & wave perhaps being but a
clue/hint as to a very similar dual nature/function to everything else as
well?

more: smell, for example, has been suggested to have a very delicate
'quantum-model' (super-positioned) aspect to it in order to function, and
thus now we have particles, waves 'and' quantum decisions involved in the
model of 'conscious awareness' (the mind) itself...

interesting :)