Thread by @ar0mcintosh

Our new preprint is out: "THE HIDDEN REPERTOIRE OF BRAIN DYNAMICS AND DYSFUNCTION" /thread biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

It builds on the work that Viktor has been developing over the past decade on Structured Flows on Manifolds that provides a general framework to link brain flows and behaviour flows.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28595045

The basic idea is that for complex systems like the brain you can express it's dynamics in terms of relatively low-dimensional manifolds that constrain the temporal evolution of network flows.

The characterization of flows on manifolds helps to understand both the rules that govern coordination of behaviour you see, but also may predict behaviours that could be realized - i.e,. what the brain does and what it could do.

We explain this in models of #epilepsy from work on the Epileptor that can be use to model seizure propagation in the brain.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24919973

Here we find that by exploring the complete flows and manifolds supported by the Epileptor that there is a "hidden regime" that resembles status epilepticus, which was not explicitly part of the original model.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25679555

This suggests that seizure maybe an innate property of the brain, which can change how we approach treatment.

Other brain diseases and disorders can also be encapsulated in this framework, wherein the symptoms can reflect both the direct impact but also the adaptation that reconfigures the manifolds and the flows it supports. (figure from chaoscope.org)

Manifold estimation is becoming more widely known in neuroscience, with some nice work from @manishsaggar and @JAlGallego for example.

The cool thing about Structured Flows on Manifolds is that you can also consider cognition and behaviour as flows on manifolds, providing a unifying framework to link them: flows in the brain and flow in behaviour. Ride the wave y'all /end

Cc @ViktorJirsa