https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.03404
RIP convolutions

A bit offtop, but close enough
https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(21)00064-7

https://arxiv.org/abs/1105.5721
Solomonoff induction

Сегодня я осознал что нахожусь в середине, на одной высоте с кемто вроде Клейтона! Разум не способен охватить более далёкие планы, он способен лишь точно сгенерировать последовательность предполагаемых событий, а потом проанализировать их и подвести к одному общему знаменателю. Благодаря этой способности мне открылось многое о Вселенной и её законах. Я научился проникать в тайны космоса и чисел, через геометрические, эвклидовские, тензорные и фрактальные построения. А потом, в середине этого пути, я узрел нечто лучшее, чем математические абстракции Вселенной: мою Вселенную. Я работал день и ночь, пытаясь изобрести чтонибудь столь же великое, как сама Вселенная, и убедиться, что это реально. И этот мой труд приносил результаты.

The impact of a lack of mathematical education on brain development and future attainment

Abstract:

Formal education has a long-term impact on an individual’s life. However, our knowledge of the effect of a specific lack of education, such as in mathematics, is currently poor but is highly relevant given the extant differences between countries in their educational curricula and the differences in opportunities to access education. Here we examined whether neurotransmitter concentrations in the adolescent brain could classify whether a student is lacking mathematical education. Decreased γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) concentration within the middle frontal gyrus (MFG) successfully classified whether an adolescent studies math and was negatively associated with frontoparietal connectivity. In a second experiment, we uncovered that our findings were not due to preexisting differences before a mathematical education ceased. Furthermore, we showed that MFG GABA not only classifies whether an adolescent is studying math or not, but it also predicts the changes in mathematical reasoning ∼19 mo later. The present results extend previous work in animals that has emphasized the role of GABA neurotransmission in synaptic and network plasticity and highlight the effect of a specific lack of education on MFG GABA concentration and learning-dependent plasticity. Our findings reveal the reciprocal effect between brain development and education and demonstrate the negative consequences of a specific lack of education during adolescence on brain plasticity and cognitive functions.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-06-07-lack-maths-education-negatively-affects-adolescent-brain-and-cognitive-development

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/24/e2013155118
#abstract

Serotonergic Psychedelics LSD & Psilocybin Increase the Fractal Dimension of Cortical Brain Activity in Spatial and Temporal Domains

Abstract:

Psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin and LSD, represent unique tools for researchers in-vestigating the neural origins of consciousness. Currently, the most compelling theories of how psychedelics exert their effects is by increasing the complexity of brain activity and moving the system towards a critical point between order and disorder, creating more dynamic and complex patterns of neural activity. While the concept of criticality is of central importance to this theory, few of the published studies on psychedelics investigate it directly, testing instead related measures such as algorithmic complexity or Shannon entropy. We propose using the fractal dimension of functional activity in the brain as a measure of complexity since findings from physics suggest that as a system organizes towards criticality, it tends to take on a fractal structure. We tested two different measures of fractal dimension, one spatial and one temporal, using fMRI data from volunteers under the influence of both LSD and psilocybin. The first was the fractal dimension of cortical functional connectivity networks and the second was the fractal dimension of BOLD time-series. We were able to show that both psychedelic drugs significantly increased the fractal dimension of functional connectivity networks, and that LSD significantly increased the fractal dimension of BOLD signals, with psilocybin showing a non-significant trend in the same direction. With both LSD and psilocybin, we were able to localize changes in the fractal dimension of BOLD signals to brain areas assigned to the dorsal-attentional network. These results show that psychedelic drugs increase the fractal character of activity in the brain and we see this as an indicator that the changes in consciousness triggered by psychedelics are associated with evolution towards a critical zone.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/517847v2.full
#abstract