You know that complicated equations can predict what story pops up in your news feed or which TikTok video you'll watch next. But you might not know that math can help us understand what happens in the brain when we smell something.
Researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester are building complex mathematical models that do just that — and if they continue to make progress, their work may aid in the fight against diseases of the nervous system, like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Decoding Smell
Every aroma you come into contact with causes responses in your brain. Believe it or not, those responses can be coded into numbers.
A rough comparison is sight and the colors we see in video games and on computer screens. Computer programmers worked for decades to break down the millions of colors you see in the real world into 1s and 0s a machine can understand.
Longtime gamers watched this unfold as systems progressed from 8-bit Nintendos and Ataris to 64-bit PlayStations and Xboxes to the even more complex and detailed visual displays today. At each stage, the expanding bit size allowed for better precision and more detail.
Snapshot or Symphony?
To build a mathematical model for smell, all you need is access to extremely potent computing power, knowledge of the
