“You could look at this as a physics of sentient systems,” he says. This simple idea has very far ranging consequences for the way we work and organize ourselves socially, as he described in a recent conversation. Friston has proposed a theory-the free energy principle-that describes with mathematical precision how the brain conserves energy by minimizing surprise. All of this is prelude to the larger ambition, still far from realized, of fusing the exquisite spatial resolution of fMRI with the exquisite temporal resolution of EEG-the oldest form of measuring brain activity- to give us a truly high-fidelity view of the brain in action.Īs often happens in science, foundational work in one field can have much wider implications. He’s best known for his inventions and innovations in fMRI brain imaging, which have made him the most highly cited neuroscientist in the world, and on the short list for a Nobel Prize. Helping us understand the function of the brain, and particularly the surprisingly dynamic ways that it uses all of that energy, has been a life-long fascination of neuroscientist Karl Friston of Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging and University College London. And although it only accounts for about 2% of our body weight, it uses 20% of our body’s energy. What do we know about the brain? It weighs about three pounds, has 86 billion neurons, controls the movements of our bodies, and produces consciousness.
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