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 …

A celebrated and controversial hypothesis suggests that some biological systems—parts,
aspects, or groups of them—may extract important functional benefits from operating at the …

The entropic brain hypothesis proposes that within upper and lower limits, after which
consciousness may be lost, the entropy of spontaneous brain activity indexes the …

Despite the absence of responsiveness during anesthesia, conscious experience may
persist. However, reliable, easily acquirable and interpretable neurophysiological markers of …

Understanding how brains process information is an incredibly difficult task. Amongst the
metrics characterising information processing in the brain, observations of dynamic near …

Since the first measurements of neuronal avalanches, the critical brain hypothesis has
gained traction. However, if the brain is critical, what is the phase transition? For several …

Balance between excitation (E) and inhibition (I) is a key principle for neuronal network
organization and information processing. Consistent with this notion, excitation-inhibition …

Highlights•The criticality hypothesis has received major attention in the past 25 years.•We
revise and discuss the experimental and conceptual controversies.•We propose that cortical …

Theoretical physics predicts optimal information processing in living systems near transitions
(or pseudo-critical points) in their collective dynamics. However, focusing on potential …

The nervous system is a non-linear dynamical complex system with many feedback loops. A
conventional wisdom is that in the brain the quantum fluctuations are self-averaging and …