On the Brain’s Dynamical Complexity: Coupling and Causal Influences Across Spatiotemporal Scales

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to reflect on how neural ensembles affect one another, that is, to characterize their causal influences. The work is based on the tenets that function emerges at several levels of organization between micro- and macro-scale and unfolds on multiple time scales. Such dynamical context creates the condition for complexity and blurs the classical Shannonian definition of transmission upon which causality can be unambiguously established. Our arguments are supported by analysis of models of and empirical support for spatiotemporally metastable brain dynamics: a scale-independent self-sustained regime in which integration (tendencies for the parts to act in a coordinatedmanner) and segregation (tendencies for independent behavior) are simultaneously realized in space and time.