California, United States

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have quantified the speed of the human brain at which it processes information, revealing we may not be as sharp as we might think. The study has opened new avenues of exploration for neuroscience.

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The study has revealed that the speed of human thought is just 10 bits per second, much less than what we’d like to imagine. Our brain processes thoughts one at a time, making it a slow and crowded queue.

This new information is in contrast to the way the peripheral nervous system functions, processing gigabits of sensory data in a second, raising many questions for scientists.

The research led by neurobiologist Jieyu Zheng was conducted in the laboratory of Markus Meister and published in the journal Neuron on December 17.

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“This is an extremely low number,” Meister says. “Every moment, we are extracting just 10 bits from the trillion that our senses are taking in and using those 10 to perceive the world around us and make decisions. This raises a paradox: What is the brain doing to filter all of this information?”

Zheng and Meister have highlighted in their published paper that despite the richness in our mind’s eye, photographic memory, and unconscious processing, the brain really does operate at a sluggish pace, which rarely goes above 10 bits a second.

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According to the researchers, the brain processes at just under 12 bits a second while solving a Rubik’s cube blindfolded and around 10 bits while playing a strategy video game. 

“The current understanding is not commensurate with the enormous processing resources available, and we have seen no viable proposal for what would create a neural bottleneck that forces single-strand operation,” the authors write.

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With over 85 billion neurons in the brain that form trillions of connections, allowing us to feel and think, why each of them can’t process collectively at a faster speed is not known.

“Our ancestors have chosen an ecological niche where the world is slow enough to make survival possible,” Zheng and Meister write. “In fact, the 10 bits per second are needed only in worst-case situations, and most of the time our environment changes at a much more leisurely pace.”

Scientists have suggested developing an interface that can link brains and computers for humans to communicate faster than the normal pace of speaking or typing, the new study has shown that our brains can only communicate at the same speed of 10 bits per second.

(With inputs from agencies)