While avalanches in [[critical sandpile models]] are stochastic in the patterns they form, avalanches of [[local field potentials]] occur in spatio-temporal patterns that repeat more often than expected by chance (Beggs and Plenz, 2004). The figure shows several such patterns from an acute cortical slice. These patterns are reproducible over periods of as long as 10 hours, and have a temporal precision of 4 ms (Beggs and Plenz, 2004). The stability and precision of these patterns suggest that neuronal avalanches could be used by [[neural networks]] as a substrate for storing information. In this sense, avalanches appear to be similar to sequences of action potentials observed in vivo while animals perform cognitive tasks. It is unclear at present whether the repeating activity patterns from in vivo data are also avalanches. | While avalanches in [[critical sandpile models]] are stochastic in the patterns they form, avalanches of [[local field potentials]] occur in spatio-temporal patterns that repeat more often than expected by chance (Beggs and Plenz, 2004). The figure shows several such patterns from an acute cortical slice. These patterns are reproducible over periods of as long as 10 hours, and have a temporal precision of 4 ms (Beggs and Plenz, 2004). The stability and precision of these patterns suggest that neuronal avalanches could be used by [[neural networks]] as a substrate for storing information. In this sense, avalanches appear to be similar to sequences of action potentials observed in vivo while animals perform cognitive tasks. It is unclear at present whether the repeating activity patterns from in vivo data are also avalanches. |