What makes us humans: Differences in the critical dynamics underlying the human and fruit-fly connectome

TL;DR

This study compares the critical synchronization dynamics of human and fruit-fly connectomes, revealing how structural differences influence neural criticality and potentially explaining unique human brain functions.

Contribution

It demonstrates how connectome structure affects critical dynamics, highlighting differences between human and fruit-fly brain networks using the Kuramoto model.

Findings

Human connectome shows Griffiths Phases with subcritical dynamics.

Fruit-fly connectome exhibits mean-field like synchronization transition.

Structural properties like modularity and dimension influence critical dynamics.

Abstract

Previous simulation studies on human connectomes suggested, that critical dynamics emerge subcrititcally in the so called Griffiths Phases. %This is the consequence of the strong heterogeneity of the graphs. Now we investigate this on the largest available brain network, the $21.662$ node fruit-fly connectome, using the Kuramoto synchronization model. As this graph is less heterogeneous, lacking modular structure and exhibit high topological dimension, we expect a difference from the previous results. Indeed, the synchronization transition is mean-field like, and the width of the transition region is larger than in random graphs, but much smaller than as for the KKI-18 human connectome. This demonstrates the effect of modular structure and dimension on the dynamics, providing a basis for better understanding the complex critical dynamics of humans.