EVENT DETAILS AND ABSTRACT

Title: Critical Brain Networks
Speaker: Dante R. Chialvo
Speaker Info: Physiology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University
Brief Description:
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Abstract:

Highly correlated brain dynamics produces synchronized states with no behavioral value, while weakly correlated dynamics prevents information flow. In this talk we argue in favor of the idea that the working brain stays at an intermediate (critical) regime characterized by power-law relations. We discuss recent results describing the traffic between brain regions that continuously creates and reshapes complex functional networks of correlated dynamics (Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 018102, 2005 and Physica A 340, 756, 2004). One aspect of this work relates to the analysis of avalanches of neuronal activity in cortical cultures. Another aspect involves functional magnetic resonance imaging, used to extract functional networks connecting correlated human brain sites. These results will be discussed in the context of the above idea of brain states as being on a permanent critical balance between miserable failure on one side and useless explosion on the other.