“Complexity and Criticality in Networks”

Organizer: Dante R. Chialvo

Speakers:

• Joseph Wakeling, Inst. of Theoretical Physics, Fribourg University, Switzerland.
• Dietmar Plenz, Neural Network Physiology, LSN, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, USA
• Dante R. Chialvo, Depart. of Physiology; UCLA, USA.
• Victor Eguiluz, Physics, Imedea, Physics Depart., University of Balearic Island, Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
• Klaus Linkenkaer-Hansen, BioMag Lab, Helsinki Univ., Finland

This workshop discusses recent attempts of using approaches inspired on the physics of non-equilibrium systems to analyze complex dynamics in brain networks. Self-organized criticality (SOC) is suggested to be a robust mechanism by which complex dynamics can emerge from the interaction of very large number of nonlinear elements. This behavior is the tendency of large systems to evolve spontaneously towards a critical state, i.e. a state that presents long-range correlations in both space and time. Systems at the critical state are highly susceptible, optimizing information transfer and adaptation.

The usefulness of ideas of criticality to neuroscience will be discussed and illustrated with experimental results from cultured rat cortex (Plenz), Magnetoencephalography (Linkenkaer-Hansen), fMRI (Eguiluz) as well as in modeling of biologically motivated neural networks (Wakeling) and extended excitable media (Chialvo)

Links to supplementary material will be posted here soon