Many-Body Physics and Nonlinear Brain Dynamics (2 of 9)

In this talk, given at the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, UC Berkeley, physicist and author Giuseppe Vitiello (Salerno University) discusses his many-body model of nonlinear brain dynamics, which is based on the thesis that the mammalian neocortex supports dynamics sufficiently similar to the one of cooperative domains in spin glasses, ensembles of phonons in crystals, coherent photons in lasers, and condensation of vapors in crystal formation. A novel perspective emerges, one which unifies brain studies and condensed matter physics.

In Vitiello's model, much attention is given to the connection between specific features of the many-body dynamics, characteristic of the theory of quantum fields, and the rich phenomenology of neurophysiological data.