Research on the connections of the human brain generates a vast amount of data. Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS) Research Group directed by Paul Verschure, ICREA researcher at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC), has developed BrainX3, a platform for the visualization, simulation, analysis and interaction of large volumes of data from the central nervous system.

 

In the representation and interaction of large interconnection networks, BrainX3 combines the power of computational calculation with human intuition. As often happens when you are faced with vast amounts of complex data, it is difficult to come up with an initial hypothesis, and BrainX3 helps to establish meaningful patterns and associations between large volumes of information so that it facilitates the formulation and definition of good working hypotheses. Within the BrainX3 platform, the researchers are able to reconstruct large-scale simulations in a 3D virtual environment.

In a study published recently in Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, researchers of SPECS in collaboration with Gustavo Deco, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition  and ICREA researcher of the DTIC, have worked together in the reconstruction of the neuronal activity of the human cerebral cortex in the resting state.

Immersion in interactive virtual reality

Via the BrainX3 platform a number of experiments have been performed: the real-time local effect of small brain stimulations have been studied in users; specific lesions have been simulated in some regions of the brain in order to see their effects; network analysis functions have been implemented in order to compare them with existing libraries of graphic theoretic measures of brain activity.

 

 

According to Verschure and Deco, "by immersion in BrainX3 interactive virtual reality users explore and analyse dynamic patterns of activity of brain neuronal networks, both in resting state and in brain activity". "The platform can help uncover signalling pathways associated with certain brain functions and also dysfunctions that may be of diagnostic interest in neurosurgery", they added.

Brain activity after transcranial magnetic stimulation

In addition to studying brain connections in resting state, using BrainX3 the researchers have simulated neuronal activity from brains injured by perturbations generated by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS).

These simulations have revealed the spatial distribution of the brain activity of attractors. An attractor is the set to which the system evolves after a sufficiently long time. The description of attractors of chaotic dynamical systems has been one of the great achievements of chaos theory. Under this mathematical paradigm, simulations have enabled seeing how the brain maintains a level of resistance to damage, noise and physiological perturbations. "Knowledge of brain activity in all these possible states could be clinically relevant for the evaluation of levels of consciousness in patients with severe brain injury", commented the authors of the study.

Reference works:

Xerxes D. Arsiwalla, Riccardo Zucca, Alberto Betella, Enrique Martinez, David Dalmazzo, Pedro Omedas, Gustavo Deco and Paul F.M.J. Verschure (2015), "  Network Dynamics with BrainX3: A Large-Scale Simulation of the Human Brain Network with Real-Time Interaction",   Frontier in Neuroinformática doi: 10.3389 / fninf.2015.00002.

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