Citation
Neuronal avalanches in neocortical circuits
TL;DR
Neural avalanches show power law size distributions in cortical slices
Original observation of power law neural avalanche distributions in cortical slice preparations, proposing that brains might operate near critical points. This sparked the neural criticality hypothesis suggesting optimal information processing occurs at phase transitions.
While the hypothesis remains debated, the observation that neural activity exhibits power law-like cascades has important implications for understanding brain computation regardless of underlying mechanism.
Key Findings from Beggs & Plenz (2003)
- Neural avalanches show power law size distributions in cortical slices
- Specific exponent relationships suggest criticality
- Proposed brains operate near critical points
- Enhanced information processing at criticality (theoretical)