Fullerenic-topological tools for honeycomb nanomechanics. Toward a fullerenic approach to brain functions

ABSTRACT

Fullerenic structures equipped with Stone-Wales transformations have been successfully utilized in the study of macromolecular assemblies. Here we show that this approach could be useful in the assessment of issues from a far-flung research area, i.e., neuroscience. Indeed, the basic morphological and functional unit of the brain, called the human microcolumn, is a tubular structure that can be flattened in the guise of a fullerene-like two-dimensional lattice. We describe this procedure in order to build a fullerene-like microcolumn, in which neuronal firing and electric signal propagation are assessed in terms of topological neural network modifications, instead of the canonical logic circuits. Every node represents a neuron, where neural computations take place. This means that nervous activity, other than logic circuits, could instead depend on topological changes and symmetry constraints dictated by Stone-Wales transformations occurring in the upper cortical layers. A two-dimensional fullerene-like lattice not only simulates the real microcolumn's microcircuitry, but also makes it possible for us to build artificial networks equipped with robustness, plasticity and fastness. In this note, electric signal propagation is investigated in terms of pure topological modifications of the neural honeycomb network.

KEYWORDS:

• Brain topology
• Fullerene-like lattice
• Stone-Wales transformations
• Topological efficiency, Simplicial complex

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.