SynthesisNeuron2025
Is criticality a unified setpoint of brain function?
Synthesis in Neuron, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 26 papers.
What it found
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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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Who cites it
26 citing papers in PubMed.
- Neuromodulation for restoring and amplifying brain function.Nature neuroscience · 2026Review
- Critical neuronal avalanches arise from excitation-inhibition balanced spontaneous activity.iScience · 2026Article
- Mice use predictive environmental cues to adapt predatory behavior in hunting tasks of variable difficulty.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Human cortical networks trade communication efficiency for computational reliability.Science advances · 2026Article
- Arousal-driven critical roaming reproduces human functional connectivity dynamics.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Quantifying Cortical Maturational Aspects During Different Vigilance States in Preterm Infants by Advanced EEG Analysis.Journal of sleep research · 2026Article
- Whisker stimulation reinforces a resting-state network in the barrel cortex: Nested oscillations and avalanches.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Unstable slow oscillations couple with epileptogenic fast-rhythm bistability in sleep-related epilepsy: A stereoelectroencephalographic study.Epilepsia · 2026Article
- Early reactivation of medial temporal lobe neurons during emergence from propofol anesthesia in neurosurgical patients.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Self-organized criticality in aquatic robot swarm.Science advances · 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
- Hierarchical whole-brain modeling of critical synchronization dynamics in the human brain.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Emergent critical oscillations in motor cortex of Parkinson's patients.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Critical Dynamics in the Association Cortex Predict Higher Intelligence in Typically Developing Children.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Enhancing Neuromorphic Robustness via Recurrence Resonance: The Role of Shared Weak Attractors in Quantum Logic Networks.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Symmetry breaking and avalanche shapes in modular neural networks.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2026Article
- EEG criticality as a prognostic tool for functional outcomes in sedated pediatric intensive care patients.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2026Article
- Synergy mediates long-range correlations in the visual cortex near criticality.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2026Article
- Two views of the brain are reconciled by a unifying principle of maximal information processing.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Synergy mediates Long-Range Correlations in the Visual Cortex Near Criticality.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Brains face selective pressure to optimize computation, broadly defined. This is achieved by mechanisms including development, plasticity, and homeostasis. Is there a universal optimum around which the healthy brain tunes itself, across time and individuals? The criticality hypothesis posits such a setpoint. Criticality is a state imbued with internally generated, multiscale, marginally stable dynamics that maximize the features of information processing. Experimental support emerged two decades ago and has accumulated at an accelerating pace despite disagreement. Here, we lay out the logic of criticality as a general computational endpoint and review experimental evidence. We perform a meta-analysis of 140 datasets published between 2003 and 2024. We find that a long-standing controversy is the product of a methodological choice with no bearing on underlying dynamics. Our results suggest that a new generation of research can leverage criticality-as a unifying principle of brain function-to accelerate understanding of behavior, cognition, and disease.
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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.