For years, one of the simplest explanations for human intelligence was also one of the biggest: the human brain has an enormous number of neurons. It also has an even more enormous web of connections linking them together. But a new study argues that part of the story may sit inside the cells themselves. The work points to individual human cortical neurons as far more sophisticated computing units than those in rats. This finding could help explain why the human brain can support language, mathematics, imagination, and invention while still being built from the same basic kind of nervous tissue found across mammals. “People often think of a neuron as a simple switch that either turns on or off,” said Prof. Idan Segev of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. “What we show is that a single human neuron is itself an extraordinarily sophisticated computing device.” The study was led by Segev and Prof. Mickey London at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences at Hebrew University, along with PhD students Ido Aizenbud and …