How the Relationship Between Information Theory and Thermodynamics Can Contribute to Explaining Brain and Cognitive Activity: An Integrative Approach

摘要

The brain is both a thermodynamic system and an information processor. Cognition is described well in terms of information-based models and brain activity as a physical process, is accurately addressed via a thermodynamic approach. A connection between information theory and thermodynamics in neuroscience is currently lacking in the literature. The aim of this paper is to propose an integrative approach regarding information and energy as two related magnitudes in the brain, and to discuss the main connections between information theory and thermodynamics that may be helpful for understanding brain activity. In this sense, the link between both approaches is based on the concepts of entropy and negentropy, the Boltzmann formula, the Landauer's Principle and the energetic cost for the observation of information proved by Szilard. This set of connections enables us to show that information and energy are two strongly related and interchangeable magnitudes in the brain with the possibility of making this relationship explicit, as well as the possibility of translating the quantities from one to the other. This view also contributes to a better understanding of the fundamental relationship between cognition and physical brain activity. Finally, we propose new conjectures and future lines to work concerning the study of spontaneity of the brain activity from this integrative perspective.