Description:

The brain’s activity is highly dynamic as is necessary for maintaining responsiveness to a changing environment. Characterizing these dynamics and their functionality in the healthy brain is a major goal of modern neuroscience. I will outline three studies that each highlight a distinct characteristic of brain dynamics. First, I will show that brain dynamics are constrained by the brain’s macroscale structural network, particularly that the presence of modules in this network are necessary for observation of high amplitude collective activation events.  Second, I adapt a well-known computational model of whole-brain dynamics to better respect the brain’s limited energy supply and its need for efficient communication and find that this model better fits observed brain activity. Finally, I turn to information theory to characterize the two types of information content that brain activity may carry: synergistic and redundant information. The presence of both types of information changes through time in a dynamically structured way. As a whole, this talk will highlight the importance of structure, communication, and information when considering ongoing dynamics in the healthy brain.

Maria E. Pope, PhD Student, Indiana University

Host: Adilson Motter