Neuronal avalanches and brain plasticity

Networks of living neurons exhibit an avalanche mode of activity, experimentally found in organotypic cultures. Moreover, experimental studies of morphology indicate that neurons develop a network of small‐world‐like connections, with the possibility of a very high connectivity degree. Here we discuss a recent model based on self‐organized criticality, which consists of an electrical network with threshold firing and activity‐dependent synapse strengths. The model is implemented on regular and small world lattices and on a scale‐free network, the Apollonian network. The system exhibits an avalanche activity with a power law distribution of sizes and durations. The analysis of the power spectra of the electrical signal reproduces very robustly the power law behaviour with the exponent 0.8, experimentally measured in electroencephalogram (EEG) spectra. The exponents are found to be quite stable with respect to initial configurations and strength of plastic remodelling, indicating that universality holds for...