17 research outputs found
Locally embedded presages of global network bursts
Spontaneous, synchronous bursting of neural population is a widely observed
phenomenon in nervous networks, which is considered important for functions and
dysfunctions of the brain. However, how the global synchrony across a large
number of neurons emerges from an initially non-bursting network state is not
fully understood. In this study, we develop a new state-space reconstruction
method combined with high-resolution recordings of cultured neurons. This
method extracts deterministic signatures of upcoming global bursts in "local"
dynamics of individual neurons during non-bursting periods. We find that local
information within a single-cell time series can compare with or even
outperform the global mean field activity for predicting future global bursts.
Moreover, the inter-cell variability in the burst predictability is found to
reflect the network structure realized in the non-bursting periods. These
findings demonstrate the deterministic mechanisms underlying the locally
concentrated early-warnings of the global state transition in self-organized
networks
Complete Inference of Causal Relations between Dynamical Systems
From philosophers of ancient times to modern economists, biologists and other
researchers are engaged in revealing causal relations. The most challenging
problem is inferring the type of the causal relationship: whether it is uni- or
bi-directional or only apparent - implied by a hidden common cause only. Modern
technology provides us tools to record data from complex systems such as the
ecosystem of our planet or the human brain, but understanding their functioning
needs detection and distinction of causal relationships of the system
components without interventions. Here we present a new method, which
distinguishes and assigns probabilities to the presence of all the possible
causal relations between two or more time series from dynamical systems. The
new method is validated on synthetic datasets and applied to EEG
(electroencephalographic) data recorded in epileptic patients. Given the
universality of our method, it may find application in many fields of science
Informativeness of Auditory Stimuli Does Not Affect EEG Signal Diversity
Brain signal diversity constitutes a robust neuronal marker of the global states of consciousness. It has been demonstrated that, in comparison to the resting wakefulness, signal diversity is lower during unconscious states, and higher during psychedelic states. A plausible interpretation of these findings is that the neuronal diversity corresponds to the diversity of subjective conscious experiences. Therefore, in the present study we varied an information rate processed by the subjects and hypothesized that greater information rate will be related to richer and more differentiated phenomenology and, consequently, to greater signal diversity. To test this hypothesis speech recordings (excerpts from an audio-book) were presented to subjects at five different speeds (65, 83, 100, 117, and 135% of the original speed). By increasing or decreasing speed of the recordings we were able to, respectively, increase or decrease the presented information rate. We also included a backward (unintelligible) speech presentation and a resting-state condition (no auditory stimulation). We tested 19 healthy subjects and analyzed the recorded EEG signal (64 channels) in terms of Lempel-Ziv diversity (LZs). We report the following findings. First, our main hypothesis was not confirmed, as Bayes Factor indicates evidence for no effect when comparing LZs among five presentation speeds. Second, we found that LZs during the resting-state was greater than during processing of both meaningful and unintelligible speech. Third, an additional analysis uncovered a gradual decrease of diversity over the time-course of the experiment, which might reflect a decrease in vigilance. We thus speculate that higher signal diversity during the unconstrained resting-state might be due to a greater variety of experiences, involving spontaneous attention switching and mind wandering
Estimating the impact of structural directionality: How reliable are undirected connectomes?
Directionality is a fundamental feature of network connections. Most
structural brain networks are intrinsically directed because of the nature of
chemical synapses, which comprise most neuronal connections. Due to limitations
of non-invasive imaging techniques, the directionality of connections between
structurally connected regions of the human brain cannot be confirmed. Hence,
connections are represented as undirected, and it is still unknown how this
lack of directionality affects brain network topology. Using six directed brain
networks from different species and parcellations (cat, mouse, C. elegans, and
three macaque networks), we estimate the inaccuracies in network measures
(degree, betweenness, clustering coefficient, path length, global efficiency,
participation index, and small worldness) associated with the removal of the
directionality of connections. We employ three different methods to render
directed brain networks undirected: (i) remove uni-directional connections,
(ii) add reciprocal connections, and (iii) combine equal numbers of removed and
added uni-directional connections. We quantify the extent of inaccuracy in
network measures introduced through neglecting connection directionality for
individual nodes and across the network. We find that the coarse division
between core and peripheral nodes remains accurate for undirected networks.
However, hub nodes differ considerably when directionality is neglected.
Comparing the different methods to generate undirected networks from directed
ones, we generally find that the addition of reciprocal connections (false
positives) causes larger errors in graph-theoretic measures than the removal of
the same number of directed connections (false negatives). These findings
suggest that directionality plays an essential role in shaping brain networks
and highlight some limitations of undirected connectomes.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures, 9 supplementary figures, 4 supplementary table