Energy Efficient "Brain" Chips

Thanks for post on this spectacular piece. A dream which started in Africa from the "frustration" of digitalization of ping-pong, to the epiphany to emulate the efficiency and shortcomings of the chaotic human brain. Well does "to err is to computer" sounds like a good sell? Neurogrid working on "Neuromorphic Engineering" might tell us an answer soon.

"As transistors shrink, the reliability of digital calculation will at some point fall off a cliff, a result of the “fundamental laws of physics,” says Sarpeshkar. Many people place that statistical precipice at a transistor size of 9 nanometers, about 80 silicon atoms wide. Some engineers say that today’s digital computers are already running into reliability problems. In July a man in New Hampshire bought a pack of cigarettes at a gas station, according to news reports, only to discover his bank account had been debited $23,148,855,308,184,500. (The error was corrected, and the man’s $15 overdraft fee was refunded the next day.) We may never know whether this error arose from a single transistor in a bank’s computer system accidentally flipping from a 1 to a 0, but that is exactly the kind of error that silicon-chip designers fear."

The hope is in here:

"The most important achievement of Boahen’s Neurogrid, therefore, may be in re-creating not the brain’s efficiency but its versatility. Terrence Sejnowski, a computational neuro­scientist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California, believes that neural noise can contribute to human creativity."

On Greying

After this long week, today I was getting ready for our walk in the woods with Max and for the first time I noticed a patch of greying hair on his chin. No need to tell, the Ape in me got anxious and the Homosapien trying to counter it with cognitive euphemisms. Ted Kerasote in Merle's Door draws an analogy to ballon mortgage and exposes our urge to embrace hedonism to avoid those thoughts. On cursory glance it sounds precise but there is something big hidden inside it exactly like a ballon mortgage. It's simply not a remedy since eventuality is eventual. "Anxious of greying" never has been in the vicinity of Max's thoughts, what makes him special is tranquil elegance to "Grey the Anxiety". No wonder, I long to live his cognitive life for just one day, to assimilate a thing or two instead of pondering on various tedious hypothesis.

A Moral Obligation to be intelligent

I am still getting the over loss but blogging is something I promised myself to do everyday and soothing effect it has on mind and body helps too. I have already written about the significance when the number of posts hits a "landmark". This being the 100th, I promise to stop counting. "A Moral Obligation to be Intelligent" is a wonderful essay by John Erskine, which was quoted in one the books I recently read. It's one of those essays which gives you goosebumps and the essence of this essay was something which always lingered in me but I was never able to express so beautifully as he did. Before reading his essay, one should read Joseph Epstein article - The Perpetual Adolescent and it sure will amplify the effect of John Erskine's words. Here's some excerpts from chapter 1 and 5 of Erskine's essay.

I. If a wise man should ask, What are the modern virtues? and should answer his own question by a summary of the things we admire, if he should discard as irrelevant the ideals which by tradition we profess, but which are not found outside of the tradition or the profession ideals like meekness, humility, the renunciation of this world; if he should include only those excellences to which our hearts are daily given, and by which our conduct is motived,--in such an inventory what virtues would he name?
This question is neither original nor very new. Our times await the reckoning up of our spiritual goods which is here suggested. We have at least this wisdom, that many of us are curious to know just what our virtues are. I wish I could offer. myself as the wise man who brings the answer. But I raise this question merely to ask another, When the wise man brings his list of our genuine admirations, will intelligence be one of them? We might seem to be well within the old ideal of modesty if we claimed the virtue of intelligence. But before we claim the virtue, are we convinced that it is a virtue, not a peril?

V.Perhaps my question as to what you think of intelligence has been pushed far enough. But I cannot leave the subject without a confession of faith.
None of the reasons here suggested will quite explain the true worship of intelligence, whether we worship it as the scientific spirit, or as scholarship, or as any other reliance upon the mind. We really seek intelligence not for the answers it may suggest to the problems of life, but because we believe it is life,--not for aid in making the will of God prevail, but because we believe it is the will of God. We love it, as we love virtue, for its own sake, and we believe it is only virtue's other and more precise name. We believe that the virtues wait upon intelligence literally wait, in the history of the race. Whatever is elemental in man love, hunger, fear has obeyed from the beginning the discipline of intelligence. We are told that to kill one's aging parents was once a demonstration of solicitude; about the same time, men hungered for raw meat and feared the sun's eclipse. Filial love, hunger, and fear are still motives to conduct, but intelligence has directed them to other ends. If we no longer hang the thief or flog the school boy , it is not that we think less harshly of theft or laziness, but that intelligence has found a better persuasion to honesty and enterprise.
We believe that even in religion, in the most intimate room of the spirit, intelligence long ago proved itself the master-virtue. Its inward office from the beginning was to decrease fear and increase opportunity; its outward effect was to rob the altar of its sacrifice and the priest of his mysteries. Little wonder that from the beginning the disinterestedness of the accredited custodians of all temples has been tested by the kind of welcome they gave to intelligence. How many hecatombs were offered on more shores than that of Aulis, by seamen waiting for a favorable wind, before intelligence found out a boat that could tack! The altar was deserted, the religion revised fear of the uncontrollable changing into delight in the knowledge that is power. We contemplate with satisfaction the law by which in our long history one religion has driven out another, as one hypothesis supplants another in astronomy or mathematics. The faith that needs the fewest altars, the hypothesis that leaves least unexplained, survives; and the intelligence that changes most fears into opportunity is most divine.
We believe this beneficent operation of intelligence was swerving not one degree from its ancient course when under the name of the scientific spirit it once more laid its influence upon religion. If the shock here seemed too violent, if the purpose of intelligence here seemed to be not revision but contradiction, it was only because religion was invited to digest an unusually large amount of intelligence all at once. Moreover, it is not certain that devout people were more shocked by Darwinism than the pious mariners were by the first boat that could tack. Perhaps the sacrifices were not abandoned all at once.
But the lover of intelligence must be patient with those who cannot readily share his passion. Some pangs the mind will inflict upon the heart. It is a mistake to think that men are united by elemental affections. Our affections divide us. We strike roots in immediate time and space, and fall in love with our locality, the customs and the language in which we were brought up. Intelligence unites us with mankind, by leading us in sympathy to other times, other places, other customs; but first the prejudiced roots of affection must be pulled up. These are the old pangs of intelligence, which still comes to set a man at variance against his father, saying, "He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me."
Yet, if intelligence begins in a pang, it proceeds to a vision. Through measureless time its office has been to make of life an opportunity, to make goodness articulate, to make virtue a fact. In history at least, if not yet in the individual, Plato's faith has come true, that sin is but ignorance, and knowledge and virtue are one. But all that intelligence has accomplished dwindles in comparison with the vision it suggests and warrants. Beholding this long liberation of the human spirit, we foresee, in every new light of the mind, one unifying mind, wherein the human race shall know its destiny and proceed to it with satisfaction, as an idea moves to its proper conclusion; we conceive of intelligence at last as the infinite order, wherein man, when he enters it, shall find himself.
Meanwhile he continues to find his virtues by successive insights into his needs. Let us cultivate insight."

"O Wisdom of the Most High,
That reachest from the beginning to the end,
And dost order all things in strength and grace,
Teach us now the way of understanding." 
The dark side such a morale comes with humungous social implications in a society where its more "convenient" shed such morales even before it takes any form or shape. Still some choose this hard choice and persevere and develop this morale but few become pompous which goes against to this noble obligation. When epistemological modesty embraces this obligation, it becomes a noble pleasure. Its not a way of life, it is life.

One generation less

My grandmother passed away today at 4 am. Thank god, she passed away peacefully in sleep. I miss her, she isn't there anymore to spoil me. I have mixed feeling, little relief her suffering ended but she has left in a big vacuum in my life. I remember those childhood days when I was obnoxious and used to play a prank of having a fake heart attack and laying dead in front of her. It used to make her anxious and she used to plead with me not to do that ever again. Today, she is playing real and I can never tell her to not to do that ever again. There is so much to write about her life, I am not in the right state for it now. I will one of these days. Well, living oceans apart, all I hear is voice on the phone conveying the sad message and everything around me remains the same expect the state of mind. Her memories are the solace.

Oxytocin - Lesson 4

More on Oxytocin, this time as a "Love Molecule".

"Facial Recognition:
"Facial recognition?" You say. "That doesn't sound like love or emotion or anything!". Well, no. Until you find out that oxytocin influences the recognition of faces that are exhibiting specific emotions. Some studies have found that increasing oxytocin in humans (they usually use a nasal spray) increases memory for faces flashed across a screen. Interestingly, some studies have found that this works particularly well for angry or neutral faces, with happy faces unaffected, and some studies say it's just faces in general. This may mean that oxytocin is particularly important for recognizing facial emotions. In fact other studies have found that increasing oxytocin increases the amount of time your eyes focus on someone else's. This isn't just good for staring into people's eyes, it's also good for detecting their emotions, and for facial recognition. And remembering what emotion that face was just expressing is pretty important in terms of social networking.

Memory:
Specifically memory for faces (very important for remembering social stimuli), and memories that are positive! Studies have shown that oxytocin can affect how often you determine that the faces you see are positive ones, and how well you remember them, without having any effects of oxytocin on your mood. Oxytocin can also influence how you judge people, possibly causing you to judge them more positively and thus remember them more positively. This could be really important for figuring out whether you've seen this person before and whether they are socially approachable (depending on their mood).

Trust:
Most people think they are very objective about who they trust, basing it on past behavior of the person towards them and others. And of course this does play a role. There are lots of studies showing that humans (and other primates) will figure out who can be trusted and punish those who violate their trust. But hormones, especially oxytocin, also play a role in who to trust, just by the look on that person's face. For example, giving people oxytocin makes them rate the photos they see of normal people as being more trustworthy (and also more attractive), possibly encouraging you to judge other people more positively
But don't worry, you don't just blindly trust people. There are apparently no effects of oxytocin on trust-related behavior when your trust is violated several times. But the hormone may still make you see people as being more trustworthy (before they go and violate your trust, and then you learn), and may even promote your ability to forgive them (The title of that one is good "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on oxytocin").

Pair Bonding:
Well, as you may know from previous posts around here, oxytocin is an important molecule for pair bonding and social behavior in female voles (dangit! I swore to myself I wouldn't mention the voles! Sigh...once was enough...). But oxytocin is also important in pair bonding and trust behavior in humans, in both males and females. As you saw above, oxytocin promotes positive memory formation and trust, both of which will enhance "affiliation" which is how much time you want to spend around the other person (in both social and romantic situations). Oxytocin may also be able to help during things like conflict. Oxytocin has been shown to increase positive communication during conflict and decrease cortisol levels (a sign of stress) presumably making the conflict a little easier to resolve. This isn't just for couples, it can also affect how stressed teenagers are, and how well they are bonded to their parents. And of course we know that oxytocin increases during sexual arousal and spikes at orgasm, so it's possible that those increases in oxytocin might have something to do with pillow-talk.
You know, when you look at ALL that oxytocin does (contractions during labor, sexual arousal, lactation, orgasm, trust, facial recognition, influences memory formation, pair bonding, and probably there's more) you have to realize that oxytocin isn't the "love molecule". It's just so much more COMPLICATED than that. You might get a little closer calling it the "trust molecule", but that doesn't even begin to cover the physical aspects as well. When in doubt, just call it OXYTOCIN."

Oxytocin - Lesson 3

Long awaited post on effects of Oxytocin in men!!

Oxytocin plays big roles in men, too. The biggest roles that it plays in men is in social awareness, social bonding, trust, and possibly empathy, which is stuff that Sci is going to have to go into in her next post, because they are in both men and women, and they are in the public awareness so much that I think they need a post of their own.
So what does oxytocin do in men? Well, for a long time, people didn't think it did much. They thought it was essential to pair bonding in females due to studies in female prairie voles, but those same studies found that vasopressin was the necessary molecule for pair bonding in male voles, not oxytocin. However, it's now known that oxytocin is very important for things like bonding in male HUMANS, and the voles can go screw. And oxytocin is also important for one thing that men find to be very, very, very important.
It turns out that oxytocin in men is important in sexual arousal. During sexual arousal, large amounts of oxytocin and dopamine (which I've written about before) are released. It is believed that oxytocin contributes to the perception of sexual arousal, while dopamine may be correlated with the positive feelings associated with sexual arousal. There are lots of receptors for oxytocin present in the penis, particularly in the corpus cavernosa, the long tubes that fill with blood during an erection.

And the sexual arousal induced by oxytocin is some potent stuff. Rats given oxytocin get both an erection and an increase in dopamine in an area of the brain called the nucleus accumbens, an area associated with the "motivational properties of stimuli". It's the area that gets hit hard when people (or rats) take cocaine, and the area that hits up whenever anything that feels really good goes on. And what feels better than sex? It appears that oxytocin feels very good indeed.
And oxytocin is not just big in sexual arousal, it is also very important in orgasm (this is true for both women and men, as you may have seen in previous posts). For male orgasm, oxytocin is very important in the muscle contractions that occur during orgasm, possibly contracting the epididymis (the tube connecting the testes to the vas deferens, and hence to the out-route). While oxytocin probably isn't the only thing in charge of male ejaculation, some case studies have found it to be effective in restoring problems with ejaculation (which Sci imagines must be a very frustrating problem indeed).

And oxytocin may have a third role to play. It is very possible that oxytocin plays a role in the aftermath of sex as well, in the role of "postorgasmic penile detumescence". The English translation of that is what we like to call a "soft-off" (I would link to Urban Dictionary there, except that their "examples" are always just...really immature. Even for Sci).
Now you might sit there and think "wait, hard-ons AND soft-offs?" How does THAT work? Well the current hypothesis is that estrogen (that's right, estrogen) plays a role in this, causing certain areas of the penis (like the corpus cavernosa and the arteries leading in) to be sensitive to the muscle-contracting effects of oxytocin during arousal, and other areas (like the veins leading out) to be more sensitive to the effects of oxytocin after the deed is done. That's some crazy awesome science right there."

The Clash of Civilizations? - Samuel P. Huntington

This is the original article, which eventually led Huntington to write the classic The Clash of Civilizations.
Here's a brief summary, which might instigate to read the great book:

"World politics is entering a new phase, in which the great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of international conflict will be cultural. Civilizations-the highest cultural groupings of people-are differentiated from each other by religion, history, language and tradition. These divisions are deep and increasing in importance. From Yugoslavia to the Middle East to Central Asia, the fault lines of civilizations are the battle lines of the future. In this emerging era of cultural conflict the United States must forge alliances with similar cultures and spread its values wherever possible. With alien civilizations the West must be accommodating if possible, but confrontational if necessary. In the final analysis, however, all civilizations will have to learn to tolerate each other."

Huntington's book was a contrarian response to Francis Fukuyama's book, End of History. I hope both were wrong since one invokes pessimistic (albeit pragmatic) view of the future and other urges us to be content with current ideology, undermining and neglecting the intellect of future generations. Nonethless, both books are a must read, history and political science aside, they teach us how to avoid sophism and train us on syllogism.

Debunking our love affair with sea food

Excellent post by Dr. Daniel Pauly on the vox populi - "The Benefits of Sea Food" and how oblivious we are the changing reality.

"You may have read about the health issues, which are quickly summarized here: while the benefits of fish-derived omega-3s, widely touted as good for the heart, are dubious and in many cases not markedly superior to those of nuts, flax seeds or leafy greens, the role of fish as a source of mercury, dioxin and other pollutants is well established, and can reach very high levels of concentration in some species, notably tuna and farmed salmon.
A friend might tell you about the legal issue: many fish are caught illegally, or above quota, which can both contribute to overfishing. Another might tell you that the fish you eat in restaurants are frequently misidentified. In other words, you do not know where they are from, and indeed, what they are.

Then there are the ethical issues, some diffuse and easily ignored, others insistent and increasingly affecting the relationship.
The fish sold in big developed nations' markets such as the US, Europe and Japan are mostly imported, since these countries having long overfished their coastal resources. In fact, fish is a totally globalized commodity, consumed the most on continents other than where they were caught.

And it is mainly from the waters of developing countries - many with rampant malnutrition - that most of the imports for the markets of developed nations originate. Given that the world catch of wild fish is declining (it is!), this means that the increased consumption of fish in rich countries leads to less fish being available to supply local markets in poorer countries.
No problem, we are told. We are going to farm the fish we need. But there is a hitch: salmon and many other farmed fish are carnivorous, and farming them involves feeding them with animal flesh, just as farming mountain lions would. In this case, the animal flesh, supplied in the form of pellets, consists of ground up sardines, anchovies, mackerels and other edible fish caught mainly - you guessed it - in developing countries. About 3-4 pounds of ground up small fishes are required to produce one pound of farmed salmon. Thus, the more farmed fish we produce, the less fish there is. This is akin to robbing Pedro to pay Paul.
And mind you, this doesn't even begin to address the issue that the small fish we remove from the sea to feed farmed salmon, pigs and chickens (fish-eating chicken!), would have been the prey of beloved animals, like majestic seabirds and frolicking dolphins. Indeed, in the Mediterranean, where tuna 'farming' is now widely practiced, the removal of small fish for tuna fattening has been so extensive that the 'common dolphin' is becoming rare, with individual dolphins showing protruding ribcages like the mangy dogs one would see at the edge of Sahelian towns.
These are real issues, capable of inducing concern and guilt in at least five percent of the population. To assuage these, we have devised various rituals, of which wallet cards are the most visible. These are small folding cards, with different animated fish on them that are green when the fish are 'good to eat', yellow when they are 'to be eaten with caution' (with lips pursed?) and red when the fish are 'not to be eaten'. The corresponding emotions end up being: feeling smug, slightly risqué or really naughty. However, whether these cards and similar consumer-oriented initiatives ever achieve their stated goal of decreasing overfishing has rarely, if ever, been evaluated.
In other words, what initially began as a consciousness-raising tool risks ending up as a feel-good device, similar to Papal indulgences - though the latter at least financed the St. Peter's Basilica and the painting by Michelangelo that adorns it.

What was this elevated consciousness going to be good for, anyway? If it was to demand new ocean policies that protect marine ecosystems, and all the amazing life they contain, why can't we do this directly, as active and concerned citizens? Why does it have to be connected with eating? Let us not forget that it is our monstrous appetite which is one of the key reasons why we can't live sustainably on this planet.

These issues, and many more, make it necessary to reassess our love affair with fish. We need to seriously ask why the morality of advocating for increased fish consumption in developed countries is not as questionable as driving a Hummer or wearing a tiger skin coat. Now, the latter is not any more a matter of judgment (or lack thereof), but a legal matter; it is illegal, completely verboten, to trade in tiger products. So why do we continue to believe that tut-tutting about the consumption of illegally caught, or mislabeled fish, is going to deter the pirates who caught them?
What we need is a broader ethic that extends to the ocean and the wildlife it contains, currently known as 'seafood'. Affording some of that wildlife a refuge from fishing would be a good start. Currently, less than 1 percent of the ocean is closed to fishing as compared to the 12 percent of land that is protected.
The point, you see, is that if we want to maintain this relationship with seafood, we must help it with its issues. In other word, as with any relationship, we must care."

Just because the Blue Planet is 71% "Blue", does not undermine the fact that we are incapable of decimating it, when it seems like we already have. Environmentalist naysayers still have to deal with the dissonance of feeding their delicacies with the dinner of the poor. Conscious consumption anybody?

Men married to smart women live longer

Times online reports this "controversial" hypothesis. It does sound controversial but it has lots of common sense than science to it.

"Swedish scientists have discovered that long life and good health have nothing to do with a man’s education and everything to do with his wife’s. Men married to smart women live longer — simple.

However, before you ring up your girlfriend to tell her that the man who left her for a bimbo will drop dead of brain atrophy, this is not a victory for women’s intelligence in general. It would be nice if our stimulating observations about FlashForward and the Tory agenda were keeping our men alert and full of life. Unfortunately, it’s simply our skill at processing advice about healthy lifestyles, and passing it on. All it boils down to is that “educated” married women have long since banned their men from eating pork pies at every other meal. They instinctively know about the importance of breakfast, the downside of dips (men think hummus is a diet aid) and the virtues of Green & Black’s 85% (the chocolate that doesn’t count). The Carla effect, in other words, is alive and well beyond the boundaries of the Elysée Palace.

Still, this seems like a narrow reading of how a woman’s intelligence affects her husband’s health. Cholesterol-watching is only the tip of the iceberg. On top of that, there’s the whole good exercise, bad exercise battle. (Men will only do exercise that results in a calf injury, and only in binges, so they are grey with exhaustion every day for a week, then laid up for the rest of the month; we are constantly lobbying for yoga.) There’s risk-avoidance training, too. For example, the struggle to prevent men walking to work in winter with sopping wet hair, wearing only a shirt; or, my personal favourite, reminding them not to shut the tea towel in the oven door, because that’s what causes all the black smoke and flames.
For some of us, the challenge of keeping our menfolk fit and well goes way beyond encouraging them to lay off the Player’s Navy Cut. Since being married to my husband, I have had to point out that swallowing chewing gum is not normal, let alone healthy. Ditto eating food that has been showered with glass. Lighting a fire in a tent. Cooking topless. Dialling while pedalling. Smoking over an open car bonnet (just kidding, but only just). The point is, without a female in the house, most men would come to a sticky end, with or without the daily sausage sandwich."

True, No? This makes me think of Abigail Adams, wife of second president John Adams. Without her and her "brilliance" there would be no John Adams and probably the "Idea of America" would have been, at best postponed indefinitely. (Laura Linney gave her best performance yet as Abigail Adams in the HBO mini series - John Adams). And the most relevant fact for this hypothesis is John Adams out lived Abigail and died at the ripe old age (for 19th century standards) of 90. My point is this hypothesis is missing the crucial factor, a smart mate makes an awesome intellectual partner, a fellow traveler and when the intellectual curiosities are fed, it does corresponds to a healthy life.

Neuroscience of Mathematics

After "reading", now its time for Math.Carl Zimmer writes about the on-going research on our "Math Instinct":

"Despite the late appearance of higher mathematics, there is growing evidence that numbers are not really a recent invention—not even remotely. Cantlon and others are showing that our species seems to have an innate skill for math, a skill that may have been shared by our ancestors going back least 30 million years.
One sign that this skill truly is innate: Children enter the world with a head for numbers. Veronique Izard, a cognitive psychologist at Harvard University, demonstrated this in a recent study of newborns. She and her colleagues played cooing sounds to babies, with varying numbers of sounds in each trial. The babies were then shown a set of shapes on a computer screen, and the scientists measured how long the babies gazed at it. (The length of time a baby spends looking at an object reflects its interest.) Newborns consistently looked longer at the screen when the number of shapes matched the number of sounds they had just heard. For example, a baby who heard “tuuu, tuuu, tuuu, tuuu” would look the longest at four shapes, less at eight, and still less at twelve. Izard’s study suggests that newborns already have a basic understanding of numbers. Moreover, their concept of numbers is abstract; they can transfer it across the senses from sounds to pictures.

People do fairly well on these tests, which summons up a weird feeling in them: They know they are right, but they don’t know how they got the answer. Even in toddlers who cannot yet count, these studies reveal, the brain automatically processes numbers. From infancy to old age, mathematical intuition consistently follows two rules. One is that people score better when the numbers are small than when they are large. The other is that people score better when the ratio of the bigger number to the smaller one is greater. In other words, people are more likely to correctly tell 2 from 4 than they are to tell 6 from 8, even though both pairs of numbers differ by two. As we get older, our intuition becomes more precise. Other experiments have shown that a six-month-old baby can reliably distinguish between numbers that differ by as little as a factor of two (like 4 and 8). By nine months the ratio has dropped to 1.5 (8 and 12, for example). And by adulthood the ratio is just 10 to 15 percent. The fact that the same two rules always hold true suggests that we use the same mental algorithm throughout our lives
Brain scans using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) are shedding some light on how our brains carry out that algorithm. Neuroscientists have found that when people do mathematical intuition problems, a strip of neurons near the top of the brain, surrounding a fold called the intraparietal sulcus, consistently becomes active. And when we confront more difficult problems—when the numbers are bigger or closer together—this region becomes more active.

Psychologists suspect that the mathematical intuition that these neurons help produce lays the foundation for all of our more sophisticated kinds of math. Justin Halberda of Johns Hopkins University and his colleagues recently carried out a telling study of mathematical intuition in a group of 14-year-olds. Some of the children demonstrated a more accurate intuition than others. Halberda then looked at the subjects’ scores on standardized school tests. Students who had a sharper mathematical intuition scored better on math tests from kindergarten onward.

The fact that children possess a mathematical intuition long before they even start school implies that our evolutionary ancestors had it too. Indeed, recent research indicates that our forebears possessed such an intuition long before they could walk upright. Scientists have found that many primates, including rhesus monkeys, can solve some of the same mathematical problems we can. Since monkeys and humans diverged 30 million years ago, mathematical intuition presumably is at least that old.

Providing evidence of that shared heritage, Cantlon and Brannon were able to teach monkeys to do addition by intuition the same way people do. The animals’ intuition is about as good as ours, and it follows the same rules. As the ratio between numbers gets larger, the monkeys are increasingly likely to pick the right one. And when monkeys use their mathematical intuition, they rely on the same region of the brain around the intraparietal sulcus that we do.

Monkeys can even learn written numbers, a skill children develop only around age 5. In order to make the link between a 2 and a pair of objects, children use a region of the brain located underneath the temple called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. This region is like a blacksmith shop for forging associations between signs and concepts. Once the association has been formed, children recognize written numbers quickly, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex becomes quiet.

Monkeys can learn, with enough training, to pick out a 4 if they see four dots on a screen. Andreas Nieder, a physiologist at the University of Tübingen, and his colleagues have discovered that, like children, the monkeys use their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to make those associations. They have even found individual neurons in the region that fire strongly at both the number 4 and four dots.

But does a monkey actually understand what a written 4 signifies? To find out, Nieder and his former student Ilka Diester trained monkeys for a new experiment. The monkeys learned to press a lever, after which they saw one number followed by another. If the numbers matched, the monkeys could release the lever to get a squirt of juice. If the numbers didn’t match, the monkeys had to keep the lever pressed down until a new number appeared, which was always a match.

The monkeys were able to learn to release the lever for matching numbers and to keep it down for numbers that did not match. If they had succeeded simply by matching shapes, you would expect them to sometimes confuse similar-looking numbers: They might choose 1 as a match with 4 because both are made of straight lines, for example. But Diester and Nieder found that the monkeys got confused in a different way. The monkeys were most likely to mix up numbers that were numerically close to each other: the sticklike 1 and the curvaceous 2, for example. What’s more, the monkeys took more time to release the lever if larger numbers matched than if smaller ones did—another sign that the animals were responding to quantity, not shape.

Once our ancestors linked their natural instinct for numbers with an ability to understand symbols, everything changed. Math became a language of ideas and measurements.

To neuroscientists, these studies raise a deep question. If monkeys have such solid foundations for numbers, why can’t they per­form high-level mathematics? Finding an answer may help us understand what makes humans so much better with numbers than other animals. Nieder and Cantlon have both speculated that the difference lies in our ability to understand symbols, which enables us to transform our approximate intuition of numbers into a precise understanding. When we say “2,” we mean an exact quantity, not “probably 2 but maybe 1 or 3.” We can then learn rules for handling exact numbers quickly. And then we can generalize those rules from one number to the next, thus understanding general mathematical principles. Other primates, lacking our symbolic brains, take thousands of trials to learn a new rule."


If mathematics ability is innate why isn't that everyone is at least above average in it (even after creation of rehearsal-loop by tutoring maths during childhood) or worse, some even despise it? Does that mean some of us have an under-developed "symbolic" brain? or its just that Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is used for a different purpose (recycled) in them?