A recent study conducted by the Universities of Tübingen and Bonn in Germany showed that the brain has specific neurons that operate when a person performs different mathematical operations. Some neurons were active only during addition, while some were only active during subtraction. The researchers further discovered that these neurons fire on specific operations even if the calculation instruction was written down as a word or a symbol.
Five women and four men who participated in the study had electrodes implanted in their brains to record the activity of nerve cells. During analysis of the participants’ brain activity, the researchers found that aside from specific neurons being active during addition or subtraction, other neurons also became active during one and the same arithmetic task. This phenomenon was referred to by researchers as “dynamic coding.”
Image credits: Christian Burkert/Volkswagen-Stiftung/University of Bonn