ReviewCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2023
The fractal brain: scale-invariance in structure and dynamics.
Review in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 73 citations in OpenAlex.
- RIFT: A Fractal-Holographic Theory of Consciousness and Autopoietic Control.Brain sciences · 2026Article
- Electrophysiological features of signals recorded from white matter.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Shared spatial and temporal principles govern connectome dynamics across timescales.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Spike dynamics in primate lateral prefrontal cortex during working memory and decision-making: A fractal analysis.iScience · 2026Article
- Distinct functional networks derived from human induced pluripotent stem cell neuronal activity.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The anticipation of imminent events is time-scale invariant.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Self images: an empirical enquiry into Rembrandt's self-portraits.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Article
- The volatile anesthetic isoflurane causes global suppression of neuronal activity, disrupting hub neuron function inFrontiers in systems neuroscience · 2026Article
- A Convergence of Theories of Mind and Brain.Computational brain & behavior · 2025Article
- Fractal Neural Dynamics and Memory Encoding Through Scale Relativity.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Abnormally enhanced temporal correlations of alpha oscillations across multiple timescales in tinnitus patients.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Mental Fatigue Detection of Crane Operators Based on Electroencephalogram Signals Acquired by a Novel Rotary Switch-Type Semi-Dry Electrode Using Multifractal Detrend Fluctuation Analysis.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Development of brain metastable dynamics during the equivalent of the third gestational trimester.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Review
- Fast updating feedback from piriform cortex to the olfactory bulb relays multimodal identity and reward contingency signals during rule-reversal.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Metric structural human connectomes: Localization and multifractality of eigenmodes.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Cluster parameter-based DBSCAN maps for image characterization.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2025Article
- Meditation and complexity: a review and synthesis of evidence.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Review
- EEG difference in the Higuchi fractal dimension of wakefulness and sleep from birth to adolescence.PloS one · 2025Article
- Painting psychosis: an empirical investigation of the self-portraits of Edvard Munch.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Universality of ecological memory for local and global net ecosystem exchange, atmospheric COScientific reports · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The past 40 years have witnessed extensive research on fractal structure and scale-free dynamics in the brain. Although considerable progress has been made, a comprehensive picture has yet to emerge, and needs further linking to a mechanistic account of brain function. Here, we review these concepts, connecting observations across different levels of organization, from both a structural and functional perspective. We argue that, paradoxically, the level of cortical circuits is the least understood from a structural point of view and perhaps the best studied from a dynamical one. We further link observations about scale-freeness and fractality with evidence that the environment provides constraints that may explain the usefulness of fractal structure and scale-free dynamics in the brain. Moreover, we discuss evidence that behavior exhibits scale-free properties, likely emerging from similarly organized brain dynamics, enabling an organism to thrive in an environment that shares the same organizational principles. Finally, we review the sparse evidence for and try to speculate on the functional consequences of fractality and scale-freeness for brain computation. These properties may endow the brain with computational capabilities that transcend current models of neural computation and could hold the key to unraveling how the brain constructs percepts and generates behavior.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.