Parabolic avalanche scaling in the synchronization of cortical cell assemblies

The diversity of synchronized neuronal groups provides a challenge for brain theories. Here, the authors report that group size grows quadratically with duration in line with predictions for neuronal avalanches and brain dynamics being critical. Neurons in the cerebral cortex fire coincident action potentials during ongoing activity and in response to sensory inputs. These synchronized cell assemblies are fundamental to cortex function, yet basic dynamical aspects of their size and duration are largely unknown. Using 2-photon imaging of neurons in the superficial cortex of awake mice, we show that synchronized cell assemblies organize as scale-invariant avalanches that quadratically grow with duration. The quadratic avalanche scaling was only found for correlated neurons, required temporal coarse-graining to compensate for spatial subsampling of the imaged cortex, and suggested cortical dynamics to be critical as demonstrated in simulations of balanced E/I-networks. The corresponding time course of an inverted parabola with exponent of & chi; = 2 described cortical avalanches of coincident firing for up to 5 s duration over an area of 1 mm(2). These parabolic avalanches maximized temporal complexity in the ongoing activity of prefrontal and somatosensory cortex and in visual responses of primary visual cortex. Our results identify a scale-invariant temporal order in the synchronization of highly diverse cortical cell assemblies in the form of parabolic avalanches.

Automated summary

The study reveals that synchronized neuronal groups exhibit a scale-invariant quadratic growth in the form of parabolic avalanches, which are primarily driven by critical neurons in the cortex. The diversity of these synchronized cell assemblies poses a challenge for brain theories.