Mathematics and the Brain
The American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics announce that the theme for Mathematics Awareness Month 2007 is Mathematics and the Brain.
One of the most exciting challenges in modern science is to fully understand the human brain and its mechanisms. Mathematics plays a vital role in this research to understand the mechanisms and function of the human brain from its smallest components to the whole brain.
Mathematical models continue to play a central role in understanding brain cells, their interaction, and their function. The 1963 Nobel Prize was awarded to Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley for a model that uses differential equations to approximate the electrical characteristics of excitable cells. Their original model described the ionic mechanisms underlying the initiation and propagation of action potentials in the squid giant axon and led to many later developments to model brain activity at the single neuron level. Learn more . . .
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