by In a groundbreaking study published in Nature Communications, an international team of researchers from the University of Minnesota and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies uncovered the self-organizing abilities of the cortex in neural development. The team discovered that the Cortex can transform disorganized inputs into highly structured patterns of activity, indicating that the brain has the capacity to organize its own function during development.
Gordon Smith, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the U of M Medical School, explained the significance of this transformation, stating, “This transformation occurs entirely within the cortex itself, suggesting that any perturbations to these small-scale interactions can significantly alter the brain’s function. This may impact sensory perception and possibly contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders like autism.”
Self-organizing systems emerge when small-scale interactions combine to generate large-scale organization. The research team’s findings demonstrate that mathematical rules similar to those governing patterns in various living and non-living systems, such as the spots on certain fish and the spacing of sand dunes, also apply to the development of the brain.
Matthias Kaschube, Ph.D., professor at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and co-investigator of the study, added, “Our results suggest that neural activity patterns in the early cortex arise dynamically through feedback loops involving a balance between local activation and lateral suppression. This confirms a theoretical hypothesis of brain development that dates back decades.”
To directly demonstrate how large-scale brain network structure emerges from the networks themselves, the team employed advanced optical techniques recently developed at the U of M. According to Dr. Smith, “By utilizing these cutting-edge optical methods, we were able to test a long-held scientific theory and show that the brain organizes its own activity during early development.”
Current research focuses on exploring how alterations in these self-organized neural activity patterns early in development impact sensory perception later in development.
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1. Source: Coherent Market Insights, Public sources, Desk research.
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