Is the brain relativistic?
arXiv Preprint Archive August 10, 2019 Denis Le Bihan
Drawing on three decades of neuroimaging knowledge, the authors propose a theoretical framework unifying time and space in the brain into a four-dimensional 'brain spacetime.' They argue that, because action potentials travel at a finite speed along myelinated axons, this brain spacetime would follow a relativistic pseudo-diffusion principle and possess a functional curvature shaped by neural activity, analogous to how mass curves the spacetime of the Universe. The framework is then applied to interpret brain dysfunction phenotypes in neuropsychiatric and consciousness disorders. The work is a conceptual synthesis, not an empirical study.