Eur. Phys. J. E (2017) 40: 101
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2017-11590-8

Regular Article

Neuronal avalanches: Where temporal complexity and criticality meet

¹ Department of Physics, Isfahan University of Technology, 84156-83111, Isfahan, Iran
² School of Computer Science, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), 19395-5746, Tehran, Iran
³ School of Physics, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM), 19395-5531, Tehran, Iran
⁴ Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University, 19839, Tehran, Iran
⁵ Center for Nonlinear Science, University of North Texas, 76203, Denton, TX, USA

^* e-mail: marziehzare@ipm.ir

Received: 12 June 2017
Accepted: 30 October 2017
Published online: 21 November 2017

Abstract

The model of the current paper is an extension of a previous publication, wherein we have used the leaky integrate-and-fire model on a regular lattice with periodic boundary conditions, and introduced the temporal complexity as a genuine signature of criticality. In that work, the power-law distribution of neural avalanches was a manifestation of supercriticality rather than criticality. Here, however, we show that the continuous solution of the model and replacing the stochastic noise with a Gaussian zero-mean noise leads to the coincidence of power-law display of temporal complexity, and spatiotemporal patterns of neural avalanches at the critical point. We conclude that the source of inconsistency may be a numerical artifact originated by the discrete description of the model which may imply a slow numerical convergence of the avalanche distribution compared to temporal complexity.