Spontaneous Origin of Topological Complexity in the Cerebral Cortex

Attention is drawn to the possibility of regarding the cerebral cortex as a physical system whose only excitations are topological. An attractive feature of such a hypothesis is that it is possible to understand how local dynamics could spontaneously give rise to a large scale organization of neurons and synapses that one might associate with sophisticated cognitive capabilities. It is suggested that the spontaneous appearance of topological disorder in the topological phases of 2-D and 4 D quantum gravity illustrates how the topological complexity of the human brain can develop. In particular the cooperative behavior of different neural circuits in the cerebral cortex may be closely related to the topology of certain 4manifolds.