Human Brain: Study Says Everyone Has Natural Ability To Be Mathematicians

The human brain consists of a network of brain regions, which are part of the advanced mathematics and less complicated mathematical operationsaa according to scientists. This network becomes activated when the numbers are shown to the students and those experts in the field of mathematics and other areas. The research studies obtained results through functional MRI on the university students that are studying mathematics and other fields.

The brain imaging is also being used to investigate if thoughts could be possible without any use of a language. To find out which of the brain regions are included in the advanced mathematical thinking, the neuroscientists made a study by using the brains of 15 mathematicians through functional MRI. The images of the MRI were collected while the subjects thought about advanced mathematics, including non-mathematical languages for four seconds to evaluate them as absurd, true or false, according to Tech Worm.

A network of the brain, the dorsal frontoparietal, which did not show any overlap with the language regions, was activated while the they were thinking of mathematical operations. Furthermore, when the subjects were told to imagine a geography or history problem, the activated network was entirely different to the mathematical regions, and included particular language regions.

The network of these  brain regions found in this study is involved in both advanced mathematics and in the numbers or mental mathematical processing. The research scientists also discovered that the network also activates when seeing numbers or mathematic formulas among the mathematicians and non-mathematicians in the experiment.

The study also implied that the network of brain regions are present even before starting to learn mathematics and that it later develops through proper training or education.  This observation corresponds to the theory of neuronal recycling by Stanislas Dehaene, which states that the advanced processes in cultural cognitive like mathematics, can use ancient evolutionary brain functions, like space, time and sense of number.

Brain, therefore, has a mathematical network that is not a language. This analysis is consonant with other findings, noting that those with poor numerical vocabulary can likely perform advanced mathematics, or that some patients with aphasia may still do calculations, Viral Decay reported.