Criticality, metastability, multistability: The “primitives” of complex brain dynamics

COEX 

Considerable research suggests that multi-scale processes in the brain arise from so-called critical phenomena that occur broadly in nature. Criticality occurs in systems perched between order and disorder, allowing agents to quickly adapt to a dynamic environment. But criticality comes in several flavours that possess unique computational properties, namely bifurcations, metastability and multistability. Each of these complex dynamics builds on simple underlying dynamical processes in different ways to broaden the behavioural repertoire of dynamical systems. I will illustrate these distinct types of criticality in simple neural mass models and overview methods to detect and disambiguate them in functional neuroimaging data. I will also summarise their explanatory potential in brain health and disease, ranging from natural vision, motor behaviour, decision making, seizures and hallucinations