If running near a critical point is useful, how does it relate to a seizure? · Grey Matter

Near the critical point a network has the widest dynamic range: in slice experiments by Shew and colleagues, cortical networks distinguished the widest span of input strengths when their avalanches followed the critical power law, and responded poorly when drugs pushed them to either side.

If running near a critical point is useful, how does it relate to a seizure?

Near the critical point a network has the widest dynamic range: in slice experiments by Shew and colleagues, cortical networks distinguished the widest span of input strengths when their avalanches followed the critical power law, and responded poorly when drugs pushed them to either side. Reducing inhibition made the networks supercritical, with large, synchronised events that dominate activity, a regime that resembles epileptic activity. The criticality hypothesis therefore links the brain's sensitivity and its vulnerability to the same position. It is a hypothesis: whether seizures are best described as a shift past a critical point is still debated, and other mechanisms (failure of specific interneurons, ion changes) can produce them.