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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

Optimal Dynamical Range of Excitable Networks at Criticality

TLDR
It is proposed that the main functional role of electrical coupling is to provide an enhancement of dynamic range, therefore allowing the coding of information spanning several orders of magnitude, which could provide a microscopic neural basis for psychophysical laws.
Abstract
A recurrent idea in the study of complex systems is that optimal information processing is to be found near phase transitions. However, this heuristic hypothesis has few (if any) concrete realizations where a standard and biologically relevant quantity is optimized at criticality. Here we give a clear example of such a phenomenon: a network of excitable elements has its sensitivity and dynamic range maximized at the critical point of a non-equilibrium phase transition. Our results are compatible with the essential role of gap junctions in olfactory glomeruli and retinal ganglionar cell output. Synchronization and global oscillations also emerge from the network dynamics. We propose that the main functional role of electrical coupling is to provide an enhancement of dynamic range, therefore allowing the coding of information spanning several orders of magnitude. The mechanism could provide a microscopic neural basis for psychophysical laws.

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Journal ArticleDOI

Critical phenomena in complex networks

TL;DR: A wide range of critical phenomena in equilibrium and growing networks including the birth of the giant connected component, percolation, $k$-core percolations, phenomena near epidemic thresholds, condensation transitions,critical phenomena in spin models placed on networks, synchronization, and self-organized criticality effects in interacting systems on networks are mentioned.
Journal ArticleDOI

Emergent complex neural dynamics

TL;DR: Viewing the brain in terms of collective dynamics is one approach now yielding some insight.
Journal ArticleDOI

Networks of the Brain

TL;DR: Models of Network Growth All networks, whether they are social, technological, or biological, are the result of a growth process, and many continue to grow for prolonged periods of time, continually modifying their connectivity structure throughout their entire existence.
Journal ArticleDOI

Criticality in large-scale brain FMRI dynamics unveiled by a novel point process analysis.

TL;DR: The method allows, for the first time, to define a theoretical framework in terms of an order and control parameter derived from fMRI data, where the dynamical regime can be interpreted as one corresponding to a system close to the critical point of a second order phase transition.
Journal ArticleDOI

Dynamical synapses causing self-organized criticality in neural networks

TL;DR: It is demonstrated analytically and numerically that by assuming (biologically more realistic) dynamical synapses in a spiking neural network, the neuronal avalanches turn from an exceptional phenomenon into a typical and robust self-organized critical behaviour, if the total resources of neurotransmitter are sufficiently large.
References
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Book

How Nature Works: The Science of Self-Organized Criticality

Per Bak
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the Sandpile Paradigm, Earthquakes, Starquakes, and Solar Flares, and the "Game of Life": Complexity Is Criticality, and Is Life a Self-Organized Critical Phenomenon?
Journal ArticleDOI

Neuronal Avalanches in Neocortical Circuits

TL;DR: This work shows that propagation of spontaneous activity in cortical networks is described by equations that govern avalanches, and suggests that “neuronal avalanches” may be a generic property of cortical networks, and represent a mode of activity that differs profoundly from oscillatory, synchronized, or wave-like network states.
Book

Psychophysics: Introduction to Its Perceptual, Neural and Social Prospects

S. S. Stevens
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present methods of measuring human psychophysical behavior: magnitude estimation, magnitude production, and cross-modality matching are used to examine sensory mechanisms, perceptual processes, and social consensus.
Book

Computation at the edge of Chaos: phase transitions and emergent computation

TL;DR: In this article, the authors studied the relationship between computation and phase-transition in cellular automata and found that the dynamics in the vicinity of this phase transition are the most complex exhibited anywhere in the spectrum, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
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