Related papers: A devil's advocate view on 'self-organized' brain …
It has been said that complexity lies between order and disorder. In the case of brain activity, and physiology in general, complexity issues are being considered with increased emphasis. We sought to identify features of brain organization…
A prominent hypothesis in neuroscience proposes that brains achieve optimal performance by operating near a critical point. However, this framework, which often assumes a universal critical point, fails to account for the extensive…
We consider an optimal control problem in which the state is governed by an unilateral obstacle problem (with obstacle from below) and restricted by a pointwise state constraint (from above). In the presence of control constraints, we…
The research concerns the dynamics of complex autonomous Kauffman networks. The article defines and shows using simulation experiments half-chaotic networks, which exhibit features much more similar to typically modeled systems like a…
We have analysed the many facets of Consciousness into two distinct categories. First: the organisational state of the neural networks at any one time, which determines whether a person is conscious - awake, or unconscious - asleep. Second:…
Biological systems often consist of a small number of constituents and are therefore inherently noisy. To function effectively, these systems must employ mechanisms to constrain the accumulation of noise. Such mechanisms have been…
Consciousness is notoriously hard to define with objective terms. An objective definition of consciousness is critically needed so that we might accurately understand how consciousness and resultant choice behaviour may arise in biological…
Consciousness is presented not as a unified and uniquely human characteristic, but rather as an emergent property of several building blocks, most of which are demonstrably present in other species. Each block has its own rationale under…
Latest insights from biology show that intelligence not only emerges from the connections between neurons but that individual neurons shoulder more computational responsibility than previously anticipated. This perspective should be…
Living organisms must actively maintain themselves in order to continue existing. Autopoiesis is a key concept in the study of living organisms, where the boundaries of the organism is not static by dynamically regulated by the system…
Systems are typically made from simple components regardless of their complexity. While the function of each part is easily understood, higher order functions are emergent properties and are notoriously difficult to explain. In networked…
Network control theory has recently emerged as a promising approach for understanding brain function and dynamics. By operationalizing notions of control theory for brain networks, it offers a fundamental explanation for how brain dynamics…
At large, most animal brains present two mirror-symmetric sides; but closer inspection reveals a range of asymmetries (in shape and function), that seem more salient in more cognitively complex species. Sustaining symmetric, redundant…
Self-organization is a property of dissipative nonlinear processes that are governed by an internal driver and a positive feedback mechanism, which creates regular geometric and/or temporal patterns and decreases the entropy, in contrast to…
A coupled map is suggested to investigate various spatial or temporal designs in biology: Several cells (or tissues) in an organ are considered as connected to each other in terms of some molecular diffusions or electrical potential…
The accumulation of adaptations in an open-ended manner during lifetime learning is a holy grail in reinforcement learning, intrinsic motivation, artificial curiosity, and developmental robotics. We present a specification for a cognitive…
Neural networks with equal excitatory and inhibitory feedback show high computational performance. They operate close to a critical point characterized by the joint activation of large populations of neurons. Yet, in macaque motor cortex we…
The origin of self-organized criticality in a model without conservation law (Olami, Feder, and Christensen, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 68}, 1244 (1992)) is studied. The homogeneous system with periodic boundary condition is found to be periodic…
Oscillatory synchrony is hypothesized to support the flow of information between brain regions, with different phase-locked configurations enabling activation of different effective interactions. Along these lines, past work has proposed…
Functional networks provide a topological description of activity patterns in the brain, as they stem from the propagation of neural activity on the underlying anatomical or structural network of synaptic connections. This latter is well…