Self-organized criticality for dendritic readiness potential

Abstract

Self-organized criticality is a principle explaining avalanche-like phenomena obeying power-laws in integrate-and-fire type dynamical systems [1][2][3][4]. Here, we demonstrate that the behaviorally relevant brain neurons, mediating voluntary and reflexive behaviors in crayfish [5-10], show signatures of self-organized criticality. The dendritic activities are into the critical states following power-laws; characterized by scaling functions within neurons; but mapped to the common scaling relation across individuals. The relation is in line with the extracellular neuronal avalanches in vertebrate species [11][12][13][14][15][16][17] which have provided evidence of the critical brain hypothesis [16]. Our intracellular data extend the universality of the hypothesis. In particular, it indicates that the pre-movement buildup activity before the voluntary behavioral onset "from crayfish to human" [18], readiness potential, is shaped by the avalanches. The nervous systems can exploit the universal dynamics for volition across the phylogenetic tree.