Related papers: The Dynamics of Functional Brain Networks: Integra…
Units of complex systems -- such as neurons in the brain or individuals in societies -- must communicate efficiently to function properly: e.g., allowing electrochemical signals to travel quickly among functionally connected neuronal areas…
The ability to effectively control brain dynamics holds great promise for the enhancement of cognitive function in humans, and the betterment of their quality of life. Yet, successfully controlling dynamics in neural systems is challenging,…
A major challenge in neuroimaging is understanding the mapping of neurophysiological dynamics onto cognitive functions. Traditionally, these maps have been constructed by examining changes in the activity magnitude of regions related to…
The brain is in a state of perpetual reverberant neural activity, even in the absence of specific tasks or stimuli. Shedding light on the origin and functional significance of such a dynamical state is essential to understanding how the…
Functional networks representing human brain dynamics have become a standard tool in neuroscience, providing an accessible way of depicting the computation performed by the brain in healthy and pathological conditions. Yet, these networks…
A theoretical framework describing the set of interactions between neurons in the brain, or functional connectivity, should include dynamical functions representing the propagation of signal from one neuron to another. Green's functions and…
Cognitive effort, defined as the relationship between cognitive load and task performance, provides insight into how individuals allocate mental resources during demanding tasks. This construct is particularly important in high-stakes…
To thrive in dynamic environments, animals must be capable of rapidly and flexibly adapting behavioral responses to a changing context and internal state. Examples of behavioral flexibility include faster stimulus responses when attentive…
Predicting how the brain can be driven to specific states by means of internal or external control requires a fundamental understanding of the relationship between neural connectivity and activity. Network control theory is a powerful tool…
Spontaneous brain activity generically displays transient spatiotemporal coherent structures, which can selectively be affected in various neurological and psychiatric pathologies. Here we model the full brain's electroencephalographic…
The brain is an intricately structured organ responsible for the rich emergent dynamics that support the complex cognitive functions we enjoy as humans. With around $10^{11}$ neurons and $10^{15}$ synapses, understanding how the human brain…
Understanding the human brain remains the Holy Grail in biomedical science, and arguably in all of the sciences. Our brains represent the most complex systems in the world (and some contend the universe) comprising nearly one hundred…
This thesis is a compendium of research which brings together ideas from the fields of Complex Networks and Computational Neuroscience to address two questions regarding neural systems: 1) How the activity of neurons, via synaptic changes,…
The human connectome has been widely studied over the past decade. A principal finding is that it can be decomposed into communities of densely interconnected brain regions. This result, however, may be limited methodologically. Past…
Recordings of brain activity, such as functional MRI (fMRI), provide low-dimensional, indirect observations of neural dynamics evolving in high-dimensional, unobservable spaces. Embedding observed brain dynamics into a higher-dimensional…
Synchronization plays a fundamental role in healthy cognitive and motor function. However, how synchronization depends on the interplay between local dynamics, coupling and topology and how prone to synchronization a network with given…
This paper studies the link between resting-state functional connectivity (FC), measured by the correlations of the fMRI BOLD time courses, and structural connectivity (SC), estimated through fiber tractography. Instead of a static analysis…
Educational multimedia has become increasingly important in modern learning environments because of its cost-effectiveness and ability to overcome the temporal and spatial limitations of traditional methods. However, the complex cognitive…
Intrinsic brain activity is characterized by highly structured co-activations between different regions, whose origin is still under debate. In this paper, we address the question whether it is possible to unveil how the underlying…
Brain activity is intrinsically a neural dynamic process constrained by anatomical space. This leads to significant variations in spatial distribution patterns and correlation patterns of neural activity across variable and heterogeneous…