Store:Exel03

Is there a way to identify the shared neural architecture underlying the cognitive processes associated with rest and active states while also quantifying how these processes diverge from that shared architecture of neural activity? In this paper, we applied mathematical methods analogous to those of quantum mechanics, and the concept of phase space to EEG recorded during rest and movie-watching to extract spatial and transitional properties of dynamic neural activity. Quantum mechanics was developed to describe the dynamics of the subatomic world in terms of probability amplitudes and densities of states. Quantum systems (in the Schrodinger formulation of quantum mechanics) are described by wavefunctions which square to a probability distribution leading to the loss of local determinism and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (for an overview/intro to the subject see. This uncertainty principle places a fundamental limit on the location and the momentum of a point particle . In essence, if the position of a particle is known there is an underlying uncertainty in its momentum (one cannot precisely say how fast it is going) and vice versa. In addition to the adaptation of the wavefunction approach to quantum mechanics in this paper, we also employed a phase space model. Phase space is a widely used tool in the study of dynamical systems, where the positional variables are paired with their conjugate momenta which establishes a multidimensional space that describes all possible configurations of the given system. This space spans the entire range of states that a system can exist in, each point (in this hyper-space) represents a single state of the system. Phase space and its assorted formalisms are a classical concept, and we simply use it as another tool for analysing the EEG data. Herein, the mathematical methods of quantum mechanics are applied to EEG data to extract a proxy to phase space. This quasi-quantum approach naturally generates the concepts of ‘average’ position, ‘average’ momentum and culminates in an analogous Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

In this paper, we posit that using mathematical tools drawn from quantum mechanics, an underlying pattern representative of task and resting brain activity can be realised, in which differences across conditions are apparent, but culminates in a task independent constant value. It is important to note that we are not claiming that the brain behaves as a quantum object as some believe . Rather, we have employed some of the analytical tools from the Schrodinger formulation of quantum mechanics to the brain with the aim of gaining new insight into resting and task-based brain dynamics. Not only does devising this model probe questions into the functions of the brain, but it also provides a novel approach to analysing the myriad of data available in neuroscience.