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Phase transitions in physiologically-based multiscale mean-field brain models

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Modeling Phase Transitions in the Brain

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Computational Neuroscience ((NEUROSCI,volume 4))

Abstract

Phase transitions involve sharp changes in large-scale order parameters, linked to instability of a pre-existing phase. In the neural context, such transitions and instabilities have been associated with changes of arousal state, anesthesia, onset of epilepsy, and other phenomena. Mean-field models are ideally suited to study phase transitions because of their ability to incorporate physiology from the microscale up to the whole brain in a theoretically and computationally tractable way, whereas spiking-neuron models are not feasible to study in sufficiently large assemblies to track global phase transitions. This chapter overviews a highly general and flexible class of physiologically based mean-field models, and summarizes a number of applications of them to neural phase transitions, especially in the areas of epilepsy and sleep.

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Acknowledgements

The Australian Research Council supported this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    P.A. Robinson, C.J. Rennie, A.J.K. Phillips, J.W. Kim & J.A. Roberts

  2. Brain Dynamics Centre, Westmead Millennium Institute and Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW, 2145, Australia

    P.A. Robinson, C.J. Rennie, A.J.K. Phillips, J.W. Kim & J.A. Roberts

  3. Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    P.A. Robinson

  4. Department of Medical Physics, Westmead Hospital, Westmead, NSW, 2145, Australia

    C.J. Rennie

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  1. P.A. Robinson
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Correspondence to P.A. Robinson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Engineering, University of Waikato, Hillcrest Road, Hamilton, 3240, New Zealand

    D. Alistair Steyn-Ross

  2. Dept. Engineering, University of Waikato, Hillcrest Road, Hamilton, 3240, New Zealand

    Moira Steyn-Ross

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Robinson, P., Rennie, C., Phillips, A., Kim, J., Roberts, J. (2010). Phase transitions in physiologically-based multiscale mean-field brain models. In: Steyn-Ross, D., Steyn-Ross, M. (eds) Modeling Phase Transitions in the Brain. Springer Series in Computational Neuroscience, vol 4. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0796-7_8

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