%A Dr Dranreb Earl Juanico
%T Role of membrane potential fluctuations to
the criticality of neuronal avalanche activity
%X Experimental evidence for self-organised criticality (SOC) in
non-conservative systems has recently been found in studies of rat
cortical slices. The size distribution of observed neuronal
avalanches has been attested to obey $3/2$ power-law scaling. A
mean-field sandpile model of a noisy neuronal system is proposed to
refute the irreconcilability between non-conservation and
criticality put forward by longstanding SOC hypotheses. The model
predicts that neuronal networks achieve and maintain criticality
despite non-conservation due to the presence of background activity
originating from membrane potential fluctuations within individual
neurons. Furthermore, small networks are demonstrated to tip towards
epileptiform activity when background activity is strong. This
finding ties in redundancy, an intriguing feature of brain networks,
to robustness of SOC behaviour.
%D 2007
%K self-organized criticality, neuronal avalanche, background activity, membrane potential fluctuation
%L cogprints5501

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