Resonating with the World: Thinking Critically about Brain Criticality

Gerry Leisman 1,2

1  Movement and Cognition Laboratory, Department of Physical Therapy, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel

2  University of the Medical Sciences of Havana, Havana, Cuba

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We have long considered how it is that billions of neurons can unite to be able to construct a physiologically based machine that can outperform many of the most advanced computers. The brain has a significant computational capacity that we have previously noted has storage possibilities that are close to infinite . Recently, we have found evidence to support the notion that the brain can tune itself to the level where it can be excitable without chaos in a fashion akin to a phase transition. Our nervous systems tend toward a homeostasis between rest and chaos. The situation between quiescence and chaos is the point at which there is an optimization of information processing This then leads us to the notion of criticality.

Criticality is a state found in complex systems on the cusp of a phase transition between randomness and order. In this type of system there exists a singular enhancement of information-processing capacities, in which we might even think that the brain itself may be critical. We are beginning to find associations and linkages between computation, criticality and cognitive processes. By understanding the notion of criticality, we can gain a more fundamental understanding of the nature of cognition and neural computation. We know that when neurons functionally combine with others, they seek a critical set point and regime. Criticality is mediated by inhibitory neurons whose function appears to be the regulation of larger networks of the brain.