Criticality, at last!

[James Brody]

According to julienne@nep.net:

"Brain lives at "edge of chaos" March 18, 2009 Courtesy Public Library of Science and World

"Science staff Researchers at Cambridge Univers ity are offering new evidence that the human brain lives "on the edge of chaos," at a critical transition point between randomness and order. The study, published March 20 in the research journal PLoS Comput ational Biology, provides experimental data on an idea previously fraught with theoretical speculation. Scientists have identified a phenomenon they call self-organized criticality where systems spontaneously organize themselves to operate at the borderline between order and chaos - in many different physical systems, including avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes, and heart rhythms. According to the study, by a team from the University of Cambridge, the Medical Research Council Cognition & Brain Sciences Unit, and the GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Unit Cambridge, human brain network dynamics have something important in common with some superficially very different systems in nature."

More at http://www.world-science.net/otherne...18_criticality

Also discussed by Barabasi and by Brody and by an army of other people:

Barabási, A-L & Albert R (1999) Emergence of scaling in random networks. arxiv:cond-mat/9910332v1, 21 Oct 1999
Barabási, A-L (2002) Linked: The New Science of Networks. NY: Perseus.
Barabási, A-L (2005) Taming complexity. Nature Physics. 1: 68-70.
Brody JF (2002) From Physics and Evolutionary Neuroscience to Psychotherapy: Phase Transitions and Adaptations, Diagnosis and Treatment. In G. Cory & R. Gardner (Eds.) The Evolutionary Neuroethology of Paul MacLean: Convergences & Frontiers, Praeger-Greenwood, pp. 231-259.
Brody, J. (2005) ADHD: Inhibition, Emergent Networks, and Maternal Investment. Chapter 2 in Michelle Larimer (Ed.) Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Research. Hauppage, NY: Nova Science Biomedical Series. pp.19-58.
Brody J (2008) Rebellion: Physics to Personal Will. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse.