Scientists have found that the brain works like a social network or the internet. The brain carries information from one area to another in the same way that information is spread on the internet or through a social network. Information spreads through small networks of nodes and to get from one node to another only requires a few jumps, which makes the brain work very efficiently. Many nodes in the brain only had a few connections and only a few were connected to many different areas of the brain. Scientists suggest that the more we study network theory, the better we can understand how the brain works.

If the brain works as networks do, then it seems that networks are natural and not arbitrary relations between individuals. The better network models we observe in real-life can help scientists understand different brain diseases or simply how one individual’s brain differs from another’s. This can also be helpful because we could see if how one makes relations in the real-world depends on how their brain is wired.

Another topic of interest is Ron Burt’s idea of gatekeepers. There are few super-connected nodes in the brain that have connections to many different areas and act as hubs of information, not unlike search engines. One must then wonder if strong triadic closure or the strength of weak ties carries over to brain processes. Also relevant to this study of the brain is the idea of cascades—action potentials are cascades because it is an all-or-none reaction.

http://www.livescience.com/health/050104_brain_internet.html