O'Byrne Jordan, Jerbi Karim
Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Lab, Psychology Department, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience Lab, Psychology Department, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada; MILA (Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute), Montreal, Quebec, Canada; UNIQUE Center (Quebec Neuro-AI Research Center), Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Trends Neurosci. 2022 Nov;45(11):820-837. doi: 10.1016/j.tins.2022.08.007. Epub 2022 Sep 9.
Criticality is the singular state of complex systems poised at the brink of a phase transition between order and randomness. Such systems display remarkable information-processing capabilities, evoking the compelling hypothesis that the brain may itself be critical. This foundational idea is now drawing renewed interest thanks to high-density data and converging cross-disciplinary knowledge. Together, these lines of inquiry have shed light on the intimate link between criticality, computation, and cognition. Here, we review these emerging trends in criticality neuroscience, highlighting new data pertaining to the edge of chaos and near-criticality, and making a case for the distance to criticality as a useful metric for probing cognitive states and mental illness. This unfolding progress in the field contributes to establishing criticality theory as a powerful mechanistic framework for studying emergent function and its efficiency in both biological and artificial neural networks.
临界性是复杂系统处于有序与随机之间相变边缘的独特状态。这类系统展现出卓越的信息处理能力，引发了一种极具吸引力的假说，即大脑本身可能处于临界状态。由于高密度数据和跨学科知识的融合，这一基础观点如今再度引发关注。这些研究方向共同揭示了临界性、计算和认知之间的紧密联系。在此，我们回顾临界性神经科学的这些新兴趋势，突出与混沌边缘和近临界性相关的新数据，并论证将与临界性的距离作为探测认知状态和精神疾病的有用指标。该领域不断推进的进展有助于将临界性理论确立为一个强大的机制框架，用于研究生物和人工神经网络中的涌现功能及其效率。
