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.
A new study led by the Salk Institute shows that there is also a second, very different way that the brain parses information: through the interactions of waves of neural activity.
The researchers hypothesize that different kinds of waves generated interact with each other and that experiments show that the brain responds differently to seeing the same thing under different conditions.
This may explain how the brain’s response can shift from day to day, the researchers say.
MORE