New research in brain mapping

In the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” the theory is that any actor, no matter how well or little known, is somehow connected to the actor Kevin Bacon through other actors in movies. It is the player’s job to find that connection.

The same concept is used in a new study about brain networks.

Dr. Olaf Sporns, IU neuroscientist and author of the recent book “Networks of the Brain,” gave insight to his research and how it applies to everyday life.

Sporns said the book includes research that puts together two separate fields of work that had never been pieced together before: the workings of the brain and networking.

“There are many networks — networks of cells, proteins, people,” Sporns said.

By applying the concept of networking to the brain, research has shown a new way to look at and map the brain.

“This will help us understand how the human brain functions work,” Sporns said. “That is my hope. We are beginning to get a much clearer picture of the wiring diagram and what that looks like.”

Professor of psychological and brain sciences Aina Puce said this can change the way researchers study the brain.

“I think that it’s a change in the way that we think,” Puce said. “We do think (of) the brain more as a whole, and it allows us to study the brain in ways that we haven’t been able to before.”

Puce is also the director of the Imaging Research Facility.

“I am basically a brain scientist,” Puce said. “I study how (the) brain makes sense: the body language, studying brain function and how different areas of the brain and different structures of the brain interact with others and how our brains make sense of it.”

Sporns said the importance of connecting networking with the brain might best be explained by using the small world phenomenon, which shows up a lot in social and biological networks.

Sporns mentioned the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” when talking about the brain network.

“With the movie actor database, I think you can play this online, you can connect any two actors with as little as four or five links every time,” he said.