The Challenge of Brain Complexity - A Brief Discussion about a Fractal Intermittency-based Approach

Paradisi, Paolo; Righi, Marco; Barcaro, Umberto

doi:10.5220/0005998601230129

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…This theory allows us to combine rhythm, which is a fundamental property of biological processes (Winfree, 2001 ) with non-rhythmic crucial events. The crucial events are organization rearrangements, or renewal failures observed in the brain (Paradisi et al, 2016 ) and are closely related to the phenomena of intermittency (Metzler et al, 2014 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex Periodicity and Synchronization

2020

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A recent experiment proves the therapeutic effect of arm-in-arm walking, showing that if an aged participant walks in close synchrony with a young companion, the complexity matching effect results in the restoration of complexity in the former. A clear manifestation of complexity restoration is a perfect synchronization. The authors of this interesting experiment leave open two important problems. The first is the measure of complexity that is interpreted as a degree of multifractality. The second problem is the lack of a theoretical derivation of synchronization, which is experimentally observed with no theoretical derivation. The main goal of this paper is to establish a physiological foundation of these important results based on the recent advances on the dynamics of the brain, interpreted as a system at criticality. Criticality is a phenomenon requiring the cooperative interaction of units, the neurons of the brain, and is hypothesized as the main source of cognition. Using the criticality-induced intelligence, we define complexity as a property of crucial events, a form of temporal complexity, and we prove that the perfect synchronization is due to the interaction between the two systems, with the more complex system restoring the temporal complexity of the less complex system. The phenomenon of temporal complexity is characterized by ergodicity breaking that has made it difficult in the past to derive the perfect synchronization generated by complexity matching. For this reason, we supplement the main result of this paper with a comparison between complexity matching and complexity management.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Complex Periodicity and Synchronization

2020

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Complexity Matching and Requisite Variety

Mahmoodi

West

Grigolini

2018

Preprint

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Complexity matching emphasizes the condition necessary to efficiently transport information from one complex system to another and the mechanism can be traced back to the 1957 Introduction to Cybernetics by Ross Ashby. Unlike this earlier work we argue that complexity can be expressed in terms of crucial events, which are generated by the processes of spontaneous self-organization. Complex processes, ranging from biological to sociological, must satisfy the homeodynamic condition and host crucial events that have recently been shown to drive the information transport between complex systems. We adopt a phenomenological approach, based on the subordination to periodicity that makes it possible to combine homeodynamics and self-organization induced crucial events. The complexity of crucial events is defined by the waiting-time probability density function (PDF) of the intervals between consecutive crucial events, which have an inverse power law (IPL) PDF ψ(τ ) ∝ 1/(τ ) µ with 1 < µ < 3. We establish the coupling between two temporally complex systems using a phenomenological approach inspired by models of swarm cognition and prove that complexity matching, namely sharing the same IPL index µ, facilitates the transport of information, generating perfect synchronization, reminiscent of, but distinct from chaos synchronization. This advanced form of complexity matching is expected to contribute a significant progress in understanding and improving the bio-feedback therapies.Author Summary This paper is devoted to the control of complex dynamical systems, inspired to real processes of biological and sociological interest. The concept of complexity we adopt focuses on the assumption that the processes of self-organization generate intermittent fluctuations and that the time distance between two consecutive fluctuations is described by a distribution density with an inverse power law structure making the second moment of these time distances diverge. These fluctuations are called crucial events and are responsible for the ergodicity breaking that is widely revealed by the experimental observation of biological dynamics. We argue that the information transport from one to another complex system is ruled by these crucial events and we propose an efficient theoretical prescription leading to qualitative agreement with experimental results, shedding light into the processes of social learning. The theory of this paper is expected to have important medical applications, such as an improvement of the biofeedback techniques, the heart-brain communication and a significant progress on cognition and the contribution of emotions to cognition.

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The Challenge of Brain Complexity - A Brief Discussion about a Fractal Intermittency-based Approach

Cited by 2 publications

References 46 publications

Complex Periodicity and Synchronization

Complex Periodicity and Synchronization

Complexity Matching and Requisite Variety

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