Related papers: Self-organising mechanism of neuronal avalanche ac…
Self-organized criticality (SOC) refers to the ability of complex systems to evolve towards a 2nd-order phase transition at which interactions between system components lead to scale-invariant events beneficial for system performance. For…
Recent experiments on cortical neural networks have revealed the existence of well-defined avalanches of electrical activity. Such avalanches have been claimed to be generically scale-invariant -- i.e. power-law distributed -- with many…
Neuronal networks can present activity described by power-law distributed avalanches presumed to be a signature of a critical state. Here we study a random-neighbor network of excitable cellular automata coupled by dynamical synapses. The…
Networks of stochastic spiking neurons are interesting models in the area of Theoretical Neuroscience, presenting both continuous and discontinuous phase transitions. Here we study fully connected networks analytically, numerically and by…
Power laws in nature are considered to be signatures of complexity. The theory of self-organized criticality (SOC) was proposed to explain their origins. A longstanding principle of SOC is the \emph{separation of timescales} axiom. It…
The brain keeps its overall dynamics in a corridor of intermediate activity and it has been a long standing question what possible mechanism could achieve this task. Mechanisms from the field of statistical physics have long been suggesting…
Neural systems process information in a dynamical regime between silence and chaotic dynamics. This has lead to the criticality hypothesis which suggests that neural systems reach such a state by self-organizing towards the critical point…
Avalanches with power-law distributed size parameters have been observed in neuronal networks. This observation might be a manifestation of the self-organized criticality (SOC). Yet, the physiological mechanicsm of this behavior is…
In self-organized criticality (SOC) models, as well as in standard phase transitions, criticality is only present for vanishing external fields $h \to 0$. Considering that this is rarely the case for natural systems, such a restriction…
It has long been argued that neural networks have to establish and maintain a certain intermediate level of activity in order to keep away from the regimes of chaos and silence. Strong evidence for criticality has been observed in terms of…
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…
Phase transitions and critical behavior are crucial issues both in theoretical and experimental neuroscience. We report analytic and computational results about phase transitions and self-organized criticality (SOC) in networks with general…
We show that a network of spiking neurons exhibits robust self-organized criticality if the synaptic efficacies follow realistic dynamics. Deriving analytical expressions for the average coupling strengths and inter-spike intervals, we…
Neuronal avalanches are a novel mode of activity in neuronal networks, experimentally found in vitro and in vivo, and exhibit a robust critical behaviour: These avalanches are characterized by a power law distribution for the size and…
Experiments in various neural systems found avalanches: bursts of activity with characteristics typical for critical dynamics. A possible explanation for their occurrence is an underlying network that self-organizes into a critical state.…
Networks of living neurons exhibit an avalanche mode of activity, experimentally found in organotypic cultures. Here we present a model based on self-organized criticality and taking into account brain plasticity, which is able to reproduce…
The critical brain hypothesis states that there are information processing advantages for neuronal networks working close to the critical region of a phase transition. If this is true, we must ask how the networks achieve and maintain this…
In the last decade, several models with network adaptive mechanisms (link deletion-creation, dynamic synapses, dynamic gains) have been proposed as examples of self-organized criticality (SOC) to explain neuronal avalanches. However, all…
Spontaneous neuronal activity is a ubiquitous feature of cortex. Its spatiotemporal organization reflects past input and modulates future network output. Here we study whether a particular type of spontaneous activity is generated by a…
Self-organized bistability (SOB) is the counterpart of 'self-organized criticality' (SOC), for systems tuning themselves to the edge of bistability of a discontinuous phase transition, rather than to the critical point of a continuous one.…