ArticlePLoS computational biology2017
Spontaneous cortical activity is transiently poised close to criticality.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 49 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
49 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Is criticality a unified setpoint of brain function?Neuron · 2025Pooled it
- Critical neuronal avalanches arise from excitation-inhibition balanced spontaneous activity.iScience · 2026Article
- Concurrent Multimodal Imaging Demonstrates That EEG-Based Excitation/Inhibition Balance Reflects Glutamate and GABA Balance.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Beyond Neural Noise: Critical Dynamics Predict Slower Reaction Times in Adults With and Without ADHD.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Self-organized and self-sustained ensemble activity patterns in simulation of mouse primary motor cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Low-dimensional criticality embedded in high-dimensional awake brain dynamics.Science advances · 2024Article
- Thermodynamic analog of integrate-and-fire neuronal networks by maximum entropy modelling.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Functional excitation-inhibition ratio indicates near-critical oscillations across frequencies.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Critical dynamics arise during structured information presentation within embodied in vitro neuronal networks.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Critical scaling of whole-brain resting-state dynamics.Communications biology · 2023Article
- Enhanced simulations of whole-brain dynamics using hybrid resting-state structural connectomes.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2023Article
- Improvements in task performance after practice are associated with scale-free dynamics of brain activity.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2023Article
- A scoping review for building a criticality-based conceptual framework of altered states of consciousness.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2023Article
- Sampling effects and measurement overlap can bias the inference of neuronal avalanches.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Structure-function clustering in weighted brain networks.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Astrocytes Learn to Detect and Signal Deviations From Critical Brain Dynamics.Neural computation · 2022Article
- Subcritical escape waves in schooling fish.Science advances · 2022Article
- Insulin signaling shapes fractal scaling of C. elegans behavior.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Inferring excitation-inhibition dynamics using a maximum entropy model unifying brain structure and function.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Brain activity displays a large repertoire of dynamics across the sleep-wake cycle and even during anesthesia. It was suggested that criticality could serve as a unifying principle underlying the diversity of dynamics. This view has been supported by the observation of spontaneous bursts of cortical activity with scale-invariant sizes and durations, known as neuronal avalanches, in recordings of mesoscopic cortical signals. However, the existence of neuronal avalanches in spiking activity has been equivocal with studies reporting both its presence and absence. Here, we show that signs of criticality in spiking activity can change between synchronized and desynchronized cortical states. We analyzed the spontaneous activity in the primary visual cortex of the anesthetized cat and the awake monkey, and found that neuronal avalanches and thermodynamic indicators of criticality strongly depend on collective synchrony among neurons, LFP fluctuations, and behavioral state. We found that synchronized states are associated to criticality, large dynamical repertoire and prolonged epochs of eye closure, while desynchronized states are associated to sub-criticality, reduced dynamical repertoire, and eyes open conditions. Our results show that criticality in cortical dynamics is not stationary, but fluctuates during anesthesia and between different vigilance states.
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