ArticlePLoS computational biology2021
Assessing criticality in pre-seizure single-neuron activity of human epileptic cortex.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- A human-specific non-coding RNA for EFHC1, an epilepsy-associated gene, regulates neural stem cell proliferation for cortical development.Stem cell reports · 2026Article
- Pretreatment with probiotics (Bacillus safensis NMCC-189 and Bacillus clausii) prevents epileptogenesis in mice via modulation of BBB integrity, oxidative stress, and neurotransmitter balance.Inflammopharmacology · 2025Article
- Harnessing Nonlinear Mechanics to Transform Medical Diagnostics.Applied mechanics reviews · 2025Article
- Early warnings are too late when parameters change rapidly.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Critical dynamics predicts cognitive performance and provides a common framework for heterogeneous mechanisms impacting cognition.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Altered spread of waves of activities at large scale is influenced by cortical thickness organization in temporal lobe epilepsy: a magnetic resonance imaging-high-density electroencephalography study.Brain communications · 2024Article
- Seizure forecasting: Where do we stand?Epilepsia · 2023Article
- NeuroActivityToolkit-Toolbox for Quantitative Analysis of Miniature Fluorescent Microscopy Data.Journal of imaging · 2023Article
- Propagation of activity through the cortical hierarchy and perception are determined by neural variability.Nature neuroscience · 2023Article
- Microscale Neuronal Activity Collectively Drives Chaotic and Inflexible Dynamics at the Macroscale in Seizures.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- Structural Modularity Tunes Mesoscale Criticality in Biological Neuronal Networks.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Article
- A scoping review for building a criticality-based conceptual framework of altered states of consciousness.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2023Article
- The time-evolving epileptic brain network: concepts, definitions, accomplishments, perspectives.Frontiers in network physiology · 2023Review
- Neurodegenerative disease of the brain: a survey of interdisciplinary approaches.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2023Review
- High-Frequency Oscillations and Epileptogenic Network.Current neuropharmacology · 2022Article
- Towards a Data-Driven Estimation of Resilience in Networked Dynamical Systems: Designing a Versatile Testbed.Frontiers in network physiology · 2022Article
- What Models and Tools can Contribute to a Better Understanding of Brain Activity?Frontiers in network physiology · 2022Article
- Quasicriticality explains variability of human neural dynamics across life span.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2022Article
- Time in Brain: How Biological Rhythms Impact on EEG Signals and on EEG-Derived Brain Networks.Frontiers in network physiology · 2021Article
- MR. Estimator, a toolbox to determine intrinsic timescales from subsampled spiking activity.PloS one · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Epileptic seizures are characterized by abnormal and excessive neural activity, where cortical network dynamics seem to become unstable. However, most of the time, during seizure-free periods, cortex of epilepsy patients shows perfectly stable dynamics. This raises the question of how recurring instability can arise in the light of this stable default state. In this work, we examine two potential scenarios of seizure generation: (i) epileptic cortical areas might generally operate closer to instability, which would make epilepsy patients generally more susceptible to seizures, or (ii) epileptic cortical areas might drift systematically towards instability before seizure onset. We analyzed single-unit spike recordings from both the epileptogenic (focal) and the nonfocal cortical hemispheres of 20 epilepsy patients. We quantified the distance to instability in the framework of criticality, using a novel estimator, which enables an unbiased inference from a small set of recorded neurons. Surprisingly, we found no evidence for either scenario: Neither did focal areas generally operate closer to instability, nor were seizures preceded by a drift towards instability. In fact, our results from both pre-seizure and seizure-free intervals suggest that despite epilepsy, human cortex operates in the stable, slightly subcritical regime, just like cortex of other healthy mammalians.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.