Criticality between Cortical States
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Abstract
Since the first measurements of neuronal avalanches, the critical brain hypothesis has gained traction. However, if the brain is critical, what is the phase transition? For several decades, it has been known that the cerebral cortex operates in a diversity of regimes, ranging from highly synchronous states (with higher spiking variability) to desynchronized states (with lower spiking variability). Here, using both new and publicly available data, we test independent signatures of criticality and show that a phase transition occurs in an intermediate value of spiking variability, in both anesthetized and freely moving animals. The critical exponents point to a universality class different from mean-field directed percolation. Importantly, as the cortex hovers around this critical point, the avalanche exponents follow a linear relation that encompasses previous experimental results from different setups and is reproduced by a model.
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Hallucinogenic compounds expanded the repertoire of harmonic modes, increasing spectral diversity and shifting the distribution of modes toward power-law distributions.
“Intriguingly, hallucinogenic compounds expanded the repertoire of these harmonic modes (Atasoy et al., 2017), increasing spectral diversity and shifting the distribution of modes toward power-law distributions, a putative—albeit controversial (Touboul and Destexhe, 2017)—hallmark of criticality (Fontenele et al., 2019).”
From An Integrated World Modeling Theory (IWMT) of Consciousness (2020) · cites this paper as Fontenele et al., 2019
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- Authors
- Fontenele, A. J., de Vasconcelos, N. A. P., Feliciano, T., Aguiar, L. A. A., Soares-Cunha, C., Coimbra, B., Dalla Porta, L., Ribeiro, S., Rodrigues, A. J., Sousa, N., Carelli, P. V., & Copelli, M.
- Affiliations
- Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (BR)
- University of Minho (PT)
- Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (BR)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Physical Review Letters
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2019-05-21
- Volume
- 122
- Issue
- 20
- Pages
- 208101-208101
- ISSN
- 0031-9007 (ISSN-L)
- 1079-7114
- OpenAlex
- W2951576922
- Cited by
- 237
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 23 · 2025: 30 · 2024: 30 · 2023: 37 · 2022: 39 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 23 · 2019: 12
- FWCI
- 16.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Physical Review Letters (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- LA Referencia (Red Federada de Repositorios Institucionales de Publicaciones Científicas) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Americanae (AECID Library) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (88887.131435/2016-00, PROEX 534/2018, 23038.003382/2018-39)
- Fundação de Amparo à Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de Pernambuco (APQ 0826-1.05/15)
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (310712/2014-9, 301744/2018-1, 425329/2018-6, 308775/2015-5, 249991/2013-6, 408145/2016-1)
- Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (2013/07699-0)
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (SFRH/BD/51992/2012, SFRH/BD/98675/2013, IF/00883/2013, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016428)
- Fundação Bial (30/2016)
- BIAL (30/2016)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Condensed Matter Physics › Theoretical and Computational Physics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Physical Sciences › Physics and Astronomy › Statistical and Nonlinear Physics › Complex Network Analysis Techniques
- Keywords
- neuronal avalanches, cortical state, phase transitions, critical exponents, universality class, directed percolation, avalanches, cerebral cortex
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