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Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience pp 1–8Cite as

Neuronal Avalanches

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Synonyms

Power-law neuronal assembly size distribution; Power-law neuronal burst size distribution; Power-law neuronal cascade size distribution

Definition

A dataset comprised of many population-level neural “events” is defined to be neuronal avalanches only if the probability distribution P(s) of event sizes s takes the functional form of a power-law P (s) ~ s −α, with exponent 1 < α < 2.

Detailed Description

Neuronal avalanches is a term used to describe a specific statistical character of spatiotemporal, population-level neuronal dynamics. Being a relatively young concept, introduced in 2003 (Beggs and Plenz 2003), a precise definition of neuronal avalanches is elusive with different authors adopting similar but nonidentical uses of the term. Nonetheless, there is consensus on certain defining aspects of neuronal avalanches, which may be distinguished from those which remain flexible and debated. In the following, we will first attempt to clarify the definitive and ambiguous...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, 72701, USA

    Woodrow Shew Ph. D.

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  1. Woodrow Shew Ph. D.
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Correspondence to Woodrow Shew Ph. D. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dieter Jaeger

  2. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA

    Ranu Jung

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Shew, W. (2013). Neuronal Avalanches. In: Jaeger, D., Jung, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_743-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_743-3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7320-6

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Neuronal Avalanches
    Published:
    03 September 2018

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_743-4

  2. Original

    Neuronal Avalanches
    Published:
    08 February 2014

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7320-6_743-3

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