Functional significance of complex fluctuations in brain activity: from resting state to cognitive neuroscience

D. Papo

Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8:112 (2014).

Behavioural studies have shown that human cognition is characterized by properties such as temporal scale invariance, heavy-tailed non-Gaussian distributions, and long-range correlations at long time scales, suggesting models of how (non observable) components of cognition interact. On the other hand, results from functional neuroimaging studies show that complex scaling and intermittency may be generic spatio-temporal properties of the brain at rest. Somehow surprisingly, though, hardly ever have the neural correlates of cognition been studied at time scales comparable to those at which cognition shows scaling properties. Here, we analyze the meanings of scaling properties and the significance of their task-related modulations for cognitive neuroscience. It is proposed that cognitive processes can be framed in terms of complex generic properties of brain activity at rest and, ultimately, of functional equations, limiting distributions, symmetries, and possibly universality classes characterizing them.

[Read more in Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience]

Advertisement

Measuring brain temperature without a thermometer

D. Papo

Frontiers in Physiology, 5:24 (2014).

Temperature has profound effects on a wide range of parameters of neural activity at various scales [1]. At the cell level, ionic currents, membrane potential, input resistance, action potential amplitude, duration and propagation, and synaptic transmission have all been shown to be affected by temperature variations [1-5]. At mesoscopic scales of neural activity, temperature changes can steer network activity toward different functional regimes [6], affecting the duration, frequency and firing rate of activated states during slow frequency oscillations, and the ability to end these states [7]. Temperature also has a substantial effect on chemical reaction rates [8], and affects the blood oxygen saturation level by changing haemoglobin affinity for oxygen [9]. Furthermore, cooling reduces metabolic processes [10], and has been used to silence cortical areas to study their function [11].

[Read more in Frontiers in Fractal Physiology]

Time scales in cognitive neuroscience

D. Papo

Frontiers in Physiology, 4:86 (2013).

Cognitive neuroscience boils down to describing the ways in which cognitive function results from brain activity. In turn, brain activity shows complex fluctuations, with structure at many spatio-temporal scales. Exactly how cognitive function inherits the physical dimensions of neural activity, though, is highly non-trivial, and so are generally the corresponding dimensions of cognitive phenomena. As for any physical phenomenon, when studying cognitive function, the first conceptual step should be that of establishing its dimensions. Here, we provide a systematic presentation of the temporal aspects of task-related brain activity, from the smallest scale of the brain imaging technique’s resolution, to the observation time of a given experiment, through the characteristic time scales of the process under study. We first review some standard assumptions on the temporal scales of cognitive function. In spite of their general use, these assumptions hold true to a high degree of approximation for many cognitive (viz. fast perceptual) processes, but have their limitations for other ones (e.g., thinking or reasoning). We define in a rigorous way the temporal quantifiers of cognition at all scales, and illustrate how they qualitatively vary as a function of the properties of the cognitive process under study. We propose that each phenomenon should be approached with its own set of theoretical, methodological and analytical tools. In particular, we show that when treating cognitive processes such as thinking or reasoning, complex properties of ongoing brain activity, which can be drastically simplified when considering fast (e.g., perceptual) processes, start playing a major role, and not only characterize the temporal properties of task-related brain activity, but also determine the conditions for proper observation of the phenomena. Finally, some implications on the design of experiments, data analyses, and the choice of recording parameters are discussed.

[Read more in Frontiers in Fractal Physiology]

Reconstructing functional brain networks: have we got the basics right?

D. Papo, M. Zanin and J.M. Buldú

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8:107 (2014).

Both at rest and during the executions of cognitive tasks, the brain continuously creates and reshapes complex patterns of correlated dynamics. Thus, brain functional activity is naturally described in terms of networks, i.e. sets of nodes, representing distinct subsystems, and links connecting node pairs, representing relationships between them. Recently, brain function has started being investigated using a statistical physics understanding of graph theory, an old branch of pure mathematics (Newman, 2010). Within this framework, networks properties are independent of the identity of their nodes, as they emerge in a non-trivial way from their interactions. Observed topologies are instances of a network ensemble, falling into one of few universality classes and are therefore inherently statistical in nature. Functional network reconstruction comprises various steps: first, nodes are identified; then, links are established according to a certain metric. This gives rise to a clique with an all-to-all connectivity. Deciding which links are significant is done by choosing which values of these metrics should be taken into account. Finally, network properties are computed and used to characterize the network. Each of these steps contains an element of arbitrariness, as graph theory allows characterizing systems once a network is reconstructed, but is neutral as to what should be treated as a system and to how to isolate its constituent parts. Here we discuss some aspects related to the way nodes, links and networks in general are defined in system-level studies using noninvasive techniques, which may be critical when interpreting the results of functional brain network analyses.

[Read more in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience]

Why should cognitive neuroscientists study the brain’s resting state?

D. Papo

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 7:45 (2013).

Cognitive neuroscience studies how cognitive function is produced by the brain. Seen from a reverse angle, cognitive neuroscience studies how brain activity is modulated by the execution of cognitive tasks. In the former case, cognitive function is characterized in terms of neural properties associated with the execution of given cognitive tasks, while in the latter it can be thought of as a probe exposing information on brain dynamics. Brain activity displays dynamics independently of whether a particular task is carried out or not. The question is then: should cognitive neuroscience get interested in the properties of resting brain activity? And, if so, how and to what extent can studying resting brain activity help characterizing the neural correlates of cognitive processes?

[Read more in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience]

Brain temperature: what it means and what it can do for (cognitive) neuroscientists

David Papo

arXiv:1310.2906v1 (2013).

The effects of temperature on various aspects of neural activity from single cell to neural circuit level have long been known. However, how temperature affects the system-level of activity typical of experiments using non-invasive imaging techniques, such as magnetic brain imaging of electroencephalography, where neither its direct measurement nor its manipulation are possible, is essentially unknown. Starting from its basic physical definition, we discuss
possible ways in which temperature may be used both as a parameter controlling the evolution of other variables through which brain activity is observed, and as a collective variable describing brain activity. On the one hand, temperature represents a key control parameter of brain phase space navigation. On the other hand, temperature is a quantitative measure of the relationship between spontaneous and evoked brain activity, which can be used to describe how brain activity deviates from thermodynamic equilibrium. These two aspects are further illustrated in the case of learning-related brain activity, which is shown to be reducible to a purely thermally guided phenomenon. The phenomenological similarity between brain activity and amorphous materials suggests a characterization of plasticity of the former in terms of the well-studied temperature and thermal history dependence of the latter, and of individual differences in learning capabilities as material-specific properties. Finally, methods to extract a temperature from experimental data are reviewed, from which the whole brain’s thermodynamics can then be reconstructed.

[Read more in ArXiv]

Feedback modulates the temporal scale-free dynamics of brain electrical activity in a hypothesis testing task

Marco Buiatti, David Papo, Pierre-Marie Baudonnière, and Carl Van Vreeswijk

Neuroscience, 146:1400-1412 (2007).

We used the electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate whether positive and negative performance feedbacks exert different long-lasting modulations of electrical activity in a reasoning task. Nine college students serially tested hypotheses concerning a hidden rule by judging its presence or absence in triplets of digits, and revised them on the basis of an exogenous performance feedback. The scaling properties of the transition period between feedback and triplet presentation were investigated with detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). DFA showed temporal scale-free dynamics of EEG activity in both feedback conditions for time scales larger than 150 ms. Furthermore, DFA revealed that negative feedback elicits significantly higher scaling exponents than positive feedback. This effect covers a wide network comprising parietooccipital and left frontal regions. We thus showed that specific task demands can modify the temporal scale-free dynamics of the ongoing brain activity. Putative neural correlates of these long-lasting feedback-specific modulations are proposed.

[Read more in Pubmed]     [Read more in Neuroscience]