Related papers: The brain near the edge
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…
To further advance our understanding of the brain, new concepts and theories are needed. In particular, the ability of the brain to create information flows must be reconciled with its propensity for synchronization and mass action. The…
In this essay we elaborate on recent evidence demonstrating the presence of a second order phase transition in human brain dynamics and discuss its consequences for theoretical approaches to brain function. We review early evidence of…
Activity in the human brain moves between diverse functional states to meet the demands of our dynamic environment, but fundamental principles guiding these transitions remain poorly understood. Here, we capitalize on recent advances in…
The brain is a highly complex organ consisting of a myriad of subsystems that flexibly interact and adapt over time and context to enable perception, cognition, and behavior. Understanding the multi-scale nature of the brain, i.e., how…
The human brain is a complex network of interconnected brain regions organized into functional modules with distinct roles in cognition and behavior. An important question concerns the persistence and stability of these modules over the…
Experiments suggest that cerebral cortex gains several functional advantages by operating in a dynamical regime near the critical point of a phase transition. However, a long-standing criticism of this hypothesis is that critical dynamics…
The brain can be considered as a system that dynamically optimizes the structure of anatomical connections based on the efficiency requirements of functional connectivity. To illustrate the power of this principle in organizing the…
The human brain exhibits a complex structure made of scale-free highly connected modules loosely interconnected by weaker links to form a small-world network. These features appear in healthy patients whereas neurological diseases often…
We offer a general theoretical framework for brain and behavior that is evolutionarily and computationally plausible. The brain in our abstract model is a network of nodes and edges. Although it has some similarities to standard neural…
The relation between large-scale brain structure and function is an outstanding open problem in neuroscience. We approach this problem by studying the dynamical regime under which realistic spatio-temporal patterns of brain activity emerge…
The human brain is composed of distinct regions that are each associated with particular functions and distinct propensities for the control of neural dynamics. However, the relation between these functions and control profiles is poorly…
Among the versatile forms of dynamical patterns of activity exhibited by the brain, oscillations are one of the most salient and extensively studied, yet are still far from being well understood. In this paper, we provide various structural…
Shedding light onto how biological systems represent, process and store information in noisy environments is a key and challenging goal. A stimulating, though controversial, hypothesis poses that operating in dynamical regimes near the edge…
The brain may be thought of as a many-body architecture with a spatio-temporal dynamics described by neuronal structures. The oscillatory nature of brain activity allows these structures (nodes) to be described as a set of coupled…
The brain is a complex organ characterized by heterogeneous patterns of structural connections supporting unparalleled feats of cognition and a wide range of behaviors. New noninvasive imaging techniques now allow these patterns to be…
It has been postulated that the brain operates in a self-organized critical state that brings multiple benefits, such as optimal sensitivity to input. Thus far, self-organized criticality has typically been depicted as a one-dimensional…
Deciphering the underpinnings of the dynamical processes leading to information transmission, processing, and storing in the brain is a crucial challenge in neuroscience. An inspiring but speculative theoretical idea is that such dynamics…
The brain is immensely complex, with diverse components and dynamic interactions building upon one another to orchestrate a wide range of functions and behaviors. Understanding patterns of these complex interactions and how they are…
We report measurements of the brain activity of subjects engaged in behavioral exchanges with their environments. We observe brain states which are characterized by coordinated oscillation of populations of neurons that are changing rapidly…