Brain Criticality - Optimizing Neural Computations

To try everything Brilliant has to offer—free—for a full 30 days, visit http://brilliant.org/ArtemKirsanov/. The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription. ===== My name is Artem, I'm a neuroscience PhD student at Harvard University. 🌎 Website and Social links: https://kirsanov.ai/ 📥 "Receptive Field" neuro-newsletter: https://artemkirsanov.substack.com/ ✨ Support me on Patreon to get access to Discord community: https://patreon.com/artemkirsanov ===== In this video we talk about the concept of critical point – how the brain might optimize information processing by hovering near a phase transition. 🕒 OUTLINE: 00:00 Introduction 01:11 - Phase transitions in nature 05:05 - The Ising Model 09:33 - Correlation length and long-range communication 13:14 - Scale-free properties and power laws 20:20 - Neuronal avalanches 25:00 - The branching model 31:05 - Optimizing information transmission 34:06 - Brilliant.org 35:41 - Recap and outro 📚 FURTHER READING & REFERENCES: The book: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544030/the-cortex-and-the-critical-point/ 1. Zimmern, V. Why Brain Criticality Is Clinically Relevant: A Scoping Review. Front. Neural Circuits 14, 54 (2020). 2. Beggs, J. M. The criticality hypothesis: how local cortical networks might optimize information processing. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A. 366, 329–343 (2008). 3. Beggs, J. M. The cortex and the critical point: understanding the power of emergence. (The MIT Press, 2022). 4. Heffern, E. F. W., Huelskamp, H., Bahar, S. & Inglis, R. F. Phase transitions in biology: from bird flocks to population dynamics. Proc. R. Soc. B. 288, 20211111 (2021). 5. Beggs, J. M. & Plenz, D. Neuronal Avalanches in Neocortical Circuits. J. Neurosci. 23, 11167–11177 (2003). 6. Avramiea, A.-E., Masood, A., Mansvelder, H. D. & Linkenkaer-Hansen, K. Long-Range Amplitude Coupling Is Optimized for Brain Networks That Function at Criticality. J. Neurosci. 42, 2221–2233 (2022). 7. O’Byrne, J. & Jerbi, K. How critical is brain criticality? Trends in Neurosciences 45, 820–837 (2022). 8. Haldeman, C. & Beggs, J. M. Critical Branching Captures Activity in Living Neural Networks and Maximizes the Number of Metastable States. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 058101 (2005). 9. Beggs, J. M. Being critical of criticality in the brain. Frontiers in Physiology. Derivation that only power laws are scale-free: https://youtu.be/m6FQqXAHNT8 ===== Special thanks to Crimson Ghoul for providing English subtitles! Icons by https://biorender.com Brain 3D models were modeled with Blender software using publicly available BrainGlobe atlases (https://brainglobe.info/atlas-api) Ising model zooming animations: https://youtu.be/MxRddFrEnPc This video was sponsored by Brilliant ===== *Disclaimer:* This channel is my personal project. The views and content expressed here are my own and are separate from my research role at Harvard University. #Neuroscience #BrainCriticality #ComplexSystems _Description remastered: February 2026. Links & Bio updated; original context preserved._