Scientists clarify the neuronal basis of the mathematical concept of 'zero'
Sep 2024, phys.org
"Unlike other numbers such as one, two or three, which represent countable quantities, zero means the absence of something countable and at the same time still has a numerical value."They showed neurosurgical patients, who had had hair-thin microelectrodes inserted into their temporal lobes at the UKB in preparation for surgery, numerical values from zero to nine. The numerical values were shown as Arabic numerals on the one hand and as sets of dots on the other—including an empty set."Meanwhile, we were able to measure the activity of individual nerve cells and actually found neurons that signaled zero. Such neurons responded to either the Arabic numeral zero or the empty set, but not to both.""So at the neuronal level, the concept of zero is not encoded as a separate category 'nothing,' but as a numerical value integrated with other, countable numerical values at the lower end of the number line.""Despite this integration, the empty set is encoded differently from other numbers at the neuronal population level, especially in the case of point sets. This could explain why the recognition of the empty set also takes longer at the behavioral level than for other small numbers."
FYI - The department of epileptology is for studying epilepsy.
via the Department of Epileptology at University Hospital Bonn, the University of Bonn and the University of Tübingen: Esther F. Kutter et al, Single-neuron representation of nonsymbolic and symbolic number zero in the human medial temporal lobe, Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.08.041
Image credit: AI Art - Tunnel of Numbers - 2025
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