Fractals in the Nervous System: conceptual Implications for Theoretical Neuroscience

TL;DR

This paper reviews the prevalence and significance of fractals in the nervous system, discussing their potential roles in neural dynamics, criticality, and adaptation, and highlights unresolved issues and future research directions.

Contribution

It documents the widespread presence of fractals in the nervous system and explores their functional relevance, emphasizing criticality and allometric control in neural dynamics.

Findings

Fractals are prevalent at all levels of the nervous system.

Criticality is a key concept in neurodynamics.

Allometric control processes are significant in neural function.

Abstract

This essay is presented with two principal objectives in mind: first, to document the prevalence of fractals at all levels of the nervous system, giving credence to the notion of their functional relevance; and second, to draw attention to the as yet still unresolved issues of the detailed relationships among power law scaling, self-similarity, and self-organized criticality. As regards criticality, I will document that it has become a pivotal reference point in Neurodynamics. Furthermore, I will emphasize the not yet fully appreciated significance of allometric control processes. For dynamic fractals, I will assemble reasons for attributing to them the capacity to adapt task execution to contextual changes across a range of scales. The final Section consists of general reflections on the implications of the reviewed data, and identifies what appear to be issues of fundamental importance for future research in the rapidly evolving topic of this review.