Jacob H Barfield

Abstract Many functional properties vary dramatically across neurons in cerebral cortex. Two fundamental goals of systems neuroscience are to determine which neurons execute which functions and how the different functional properties of a neuron are related. Often, it is assumed that if two properties are uncorrelated, then there is no important relationship to report.

Abstract Naturally occurring body movements and collective neural activity both exhibit complex dynamics, often with scale-free, fractal spatiotemporal structure. Scale-free dynamics of both brain and behavior are important because each is associated with functional benefits to the organism. Despite their similarities, scale-free brain activity and scale-free behavior have been studied separately, without a unified explanation.