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Induction of an Isoelectric Brain State to Investigate the Impact of Endogenous Synaptic Activity on Neuronal Excitability In Vivo

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Neural criticality from effective latent variables.

Mia C Morrell¹, Ilya Nemenman², Audrey Sederberg³

¹Department of Physics, New York University, New York, United States.

|March 12, 2024

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Brain activity may exhibit avalanche criticality, a critical state observed in neural systems. This study shows that coupling neural activity to multiple latent variables naturally leads to this critical behavior without fine-tuning.

Keywords:

fine-tuning latent dynamics neural criticality neuroscience none physics of living systems power laws

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Area of Science:

Computational Neuroscience
Complex Systems Science
Dynamical Systems Theory

Background:

Power law distributions in neural activity suggest brains may operate in a critical state.
Avalanche criticality, a specific manifestation of criticality, has been observed across diverse neural systems.
Recent findings link power laws in mouse neural populations to coupling with multiple latent dynamical variables.

Purpose of the Study:

To determine the conditions under which latent dynamical variables induce avalanche criticality.
To investigate if a similar mechanism underlies avalanche criticality in neural systems.
To explore the relationship between latent variables and critical brain dynamics.

Main Methods:

Mathematical modeling of neural populations coupled to latent dynamical variables.
Analysis of critical behavior and parameter space exploration.
Identification of different regimes of avalanche dynamics based on information content.

Main Results:

Latent dynamical variables can indeed give rise to avalanche criticality.
Coupling to multiple latent variables broadens the parameter range for critical behavior compared to a single variable.
Avalanche criticality is observed without the need for fine-tuning model parameters.
Two distinct critical avalanche regimes were identified, differing in information transmission.

Conclusions:

Avalanche criticality in neural systems can emerge from neural activity being driven by a few underlying dynamical variables.
These dynamical variables can be inferred from the observed population activity.
The findings provide a mechanistic explanation for avalanche criticality in the brain.