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Full-Text Articles in Physics
Scale-Free Behavioral Dynamics Directly Linked With Scale-Free Cortical Dynamics, Sabrina Jones
Scale-Free Behavioral Dynamics Directly Linked With Scale-Free Cortical Dynamics, Sabrina Jones
Physics Undergraduate Honors Theses
In organisms, an interesting phenomenon occurs in both behavior and neuronal activity: organization with fractal, scale-free fluctuations over multiple spatiotemporal orders of magnitude (1,2). In regard to behavior, this sort of complex structure-- which manifests itself from small scale fidgeting to purposeful, full body movements-- may support goals such as foraging (3-6), visual search (4), and decision making (7,8). Likewise, the presence of this sort of structure in the cerebral cortex in the form of spatiotemporal cascades, coined “neuronal avalanches,” may offer optimal information transfer (9). Thus, when considering the functional relationship between the cerebral cortex and movements of the …
Experimental And Computational Studies Of Cortical Neural Network Properties Through Signal Processing, Wesley Patrick Clawson
Experimental And Computational Studies Of Cortical Neural Network Properties Through Signal Processing, Wesley Patrick Clawson
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Previous studies, both theoretical and experimental, of network level dynamics in the cerebral cortex show evidence for a statistical phenomenon called criticality; a phenomenon originally studied in the context of phase transitions in physical systems and that is associated with favorable information processing in the context of the brain. The focus of this thesis is to expand upon past results with new experimentation and modeling to show a relationship between criticality and the ability to detect and discriminate sensory input. A line of theoretical work predicts maximal sensory discrimination as a functional benefit of criticality, which can then be characterized …