Information processing occurs via critical avalanches in a model of the primary visual cortex

TL;DR

This study introduces a biologically inspired model of the macaque primary visual cortex that exhibits critical avalanches following visual stimuli, with properties aligning with experimental observations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel model demonstrating power-law avalanches in the visual cortex, linking network structure and synaptic parameters to critical dynamics.

Findings

Avalanche profiles depend on excitatory postsynaptic potential levels.

Avalanches follow a size-duration scaling relation.

Critical exponents match experimental data.

Abstract

We study a new biologically motivated model for the Macaque monkey primary visual cortex which presents power-law avalanches after a visual stimulus. The signal propagates through all the layers of the model via avalanches that depend on network structure and synaptic parameter. We identify four different avalanche profiles as a function of the excitatory postsynaptic potential. The avalanches follow a size-duration scaling relation and present critical exponents that match experiments. The structure of the network gives rise to a regime of two characteristic spatial scales, one of which vanishes in the thermodynamic limit.