Is cortical criticality unique?

Abstract

There are indications that for optimizing neural computation, neural networks - including the brain - operate at criticality. Previous approaches have, however, used diverse fingerprints of criticality, leaving open the question whether they refer to a unique critical point or whether there could be several. Using a recurrent spiking neural network as the model, we demonstrate that avalanche criticality does not necessarily lie at the dynamical edge-of-chaos and that therefore, the different fingerprints indicate distinct phenomena with an as yet unclarified relationship.