Comments on: fMRI evidence that human brain has (functional) small world properties http://neurodudes.com/2006/01/11/fmri-evidence-that-human-brain-has-functional-small-world-properties/ at the intersection of neuroscience and AI. Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:15:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 By: Chris Chatham http://neurodudes.com/2006/01/11/fmri-evidence-that-human-brain-has-functional-small-world-properties/#comment-1176 Chris Chatham Wed, 11 Jan 2006 18:00:02 +0000 http://neurodudes.com/2006/01/11/fmri-evidence-that-human-brain-has-functional-small-world-properties/#comment-1176 Very interesting - thanks. This reminds me of work done by Olaf Sporns, specifically a paper called "The small world of the cerebral cortex" (available at http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ecortex/NI2004.pdf) where they also look at clustering and average path length. I am a little surprised by what they say about the brain not showing scale-free properties, though not for any good reason. I guess I'm just attached to the idea of preferential attachment :) Perhaps the cortex overall does not show preferential attachement, but individual regions might? Or perhaps the brain isn't scale free since the neurons at the "tail end" of the connectivity distribution would be eliminated via pruning? Very interesting - thanks. This reminds me of work done by Olaf Sporns, specifically a paper called “The small world of the cerebral cortex” (available at http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ecortex/NI2004.pdf) where they also look at clustering and average path length.

I am a little surprised by what they say about the brain not showing scale-free properties, though not for any good reason. I guess I’m just attached to the idea of preferential attachment :) Perhaps the cortex overall does not show preferential attachement, but individual regions might? Or perhaps the brain isn’t scale free since the neurons at the “tail end” of the connectivity distribution would be eliminated via pruning?

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