Source-linked AI summary
Brain organization into resting state networks emerges at criticality on a model of the human connectome
Ariel Haimovici, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Pablo Balenzuela, Dante R. Chialvo
TL;DR
The paper asks how brain structure gives rise to large-scale function, and tests whether critical dynamics on the human connectome reproduce observed spontaneous activity patterns. Using a 998-node anatomical network with excitable dynamics, it finds that criticality reproduces key fMRI signatures, including correlation-length scaling, correlation fluctuations, and resting-state networks.
Problem
The paper addresses how large-scale brain architecture relates to function, specifically how spontaneous activity organizes into experimentally observed resting-state networks.
Method
The study runs simple excitable dynamics on an empirically derived 998-node human connectome and compares model activity with experimental fMRI findings.
Results
Critical dynamics reproduce the experimentally observed divergence of correlation length, size-independent correlation fluctuations, and emergence of large-scale resting-state networks.
Takeaways & Limitations
The results indicate that the dynamical regime, not structural connectivity alone, is central to reproducing multiple large-scale features of human brain function.
Takeaways & Limitations
Because the connectome is finite, criticality cannot be demonstrated in the thermodynamic limit, so the study uses alternative indicators.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
The relation between large-scale brain structure and function is an outstanding open problem in neuroscience. We approach this problem by studying the dynamical regime under which realistic spatio-temporal patterns of brain activity emerge from the empirically derived network of human brain neuroanatomical connections. The results show that critical dynamics unfolding on the structural connectivity of the human brain allow the recovery of many key experimental findings obtained with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), such as divergence of the correlation length, anomalous scaling of correlation fluctuations, and the emergence of large-scale resting state networks.