Related papers: Efficient coding under constraint drives neural sy…
Observations of power laws in neural activity data have raised the intriguing notion that brains may operate in a critical state. One example of this critical state is "avalanche criticality," which has been observed in various systems,…
Recent experimental observations have supported the hypothesis that the cerebral cortex operates in a dynamical regime near criticality, where the neuronal network exhibits a mixture of ordered and disordered patterns. However, A…
The idea that information-processing systems operate near criticality to enhance computational performance is supported by scaling signatures in brain activity. However, external signals raise the question of whether this behavior is…
The presence of both critical behavior and oscillating patterns in brain dynamics is a very interesting issue. In this paper, we consider a model for a neuron population, where each neuron is modeled by an over-damped rotator. We find that…
The critical state is assumed to be optimal for any computation in recurrent neural networks, because criticality maximizes a number of abstract computational properties. We challenge this assumption by evaluating the performance of a…
In systems neuroscience, most models posit that brain regions communicate information under constraints of efficiency. Yet, evidence for efficient communication in structural brain networks characterized by hierarchical organization and…
There is evidence that biological systems, such as the brain, work at a critical regime robust to noise, and are therefore able to remain in it under perturbations. In this work, we address the question of robustness of critical systems to…
The observation of apparent power-laws in neuronal systems has led to the suggestion that the brain is at, or close to, a critical state and may be a self-organised critical system. Within the framework of self-organised criticality a…
Self-organized criticality has been proposed to be a universal mechanism for the emergence of scale-free dynamics in many complex systems, and possibly in the brain. While such scale-free patterns were identified experimentally in many…
Recent analyses combining advanced theoretical techniques and high-quality data from thousands of simultaneously recorded neurons provide strong support for the hypothesis that neural dynamics operate near the edge of instability across…
Unlike digital computers, the brain exhibits spontaneous activity even during complete rest, despite the evolutionary pressure for energy efficiency. Inspired by the critical brain hypothesis, which proposes that the brain operates…
The critical brain hypothesis posits that neural circuitry operates near criticality to reap the computational benefits of accessing a wide range of timescales. The theory of critical phenomena generally predicts heavy-tailed (power-law)…
In this work we explore encoding strategies learned by statistical models of sensory coding in noisy spiking networks. Early stages of sensory communication in neural systems can be viewed as encoding channels in the information-theoretic…
The critical brain hypothesis has emerged as an attractive framework to understand neuronal activity, but it is still widely debated. In this work, we analyze data from a multi-electrodes array in the rat's cortex and we find that power-law…
A rigorous understanding of brain dynamics and function requires a conceptual bridge between multiple levels of organization, including neural spiking and network-level population activity. Mounting evidence suggests that neural networks of…
In recent years self organised critical neuronal models have provided insights regarding the origin of the experimentally observed avalanching behaviour of neuronal systems. It has been shown that dynamical synapses, as a form of short-term…
Empirical evidence suggesting that living systems might operate in the vicinity of critical points, at the borderline between order and disorder, has proliferated in recent years, with examples ranging from spontaneous brain activity to…
Cognitive function requires the coordination of neural activity across many scales, from neurons and circuits to large-scale networks. As such, it is unlikely that an explanatory framework focused upon any single scale will yield a…
Positive correlations in the activity of neurons are widely observed in the brain. Previous studies have shown these correlations to be detrimental to the fidelity of population codes or at best marginally favorable compared to independent…
Criticality is hypothesized as a physical mechanism underlying efficient transitions between cortical states and remarkable information processing capacities in the brain. While considerable evidence generally supports this hypothesis,…