A simple algorithm could explain the inner workings of human intelligence, and it could one day be encoded into artificial intelligence (AI) systems, researchers suggest. It's a mind-bending idea: that all the complex thoughts running through our heads are the product of a set of definable sums. But scientists have identified clear patterns in the brains of mice and hamsters, and if a similar phenomenon could be found in human brains, it could form the basis of such an algorithm for intelligence. "Many people have long speculated that there has to be a basic design principle from which intelligence originates and the brain evolves, like how the double helix of DNA and genetic codes are universal for every organism," says lead researcher Joe Tsien from Augusta University in Georgia. "We present evidence that the brain may operate on an amazingly simple mathematical logic." Last year, Tsien published a paper describing his "Theory of Connectivity", in which he put forward the idea that