Title
Network dynamics with BrainX3: a large-scale simulation of the human brain network with real-time interaction
Abstract
BrainX(3) is a large-scale simulation of human brain activity with real-time interaction, rendered in 3D in a virtual reality environment, which combines computational power with human intuition for the exploration and analysis of complex dynamical networks. We ground this simulation on structural connectivity obtained from diffusion spectrum imaging data and model it on neuronal population dynamics. Users can interact with BrainX(3) in real-time by perturbing brain regions with transient stimulations to observe reverberating network activity, simulate lesion dynamics or implement network analysis functions from a library of graph theoretic measures. BrainX(3) can thus be used as a novel immersive platform for exploration and analysis of dynamical activity patterns in brain networks, both at rest or in a task-related state, for discovery of signaling pathways associated to brain function and/or dysfunction and as a tool for virtual neurosurgery. Our results demonstrate these functionalities and shed insight on the dynamics of the resting-state attractor. Specifically, we found that a noisy network seems to favor a low firing attractor state. We also found that the dynamics of a noisy network is less resilient to lesions. Our simulations on TMS perturbations show that even though TMS inhibits most of the network, it also sparsely excites a few regions. This is presumably due to anti-correlations in the dynamics and suggests that even a lesioned network can show sparsely distributed increased activity compared to healthy resting-state, over specific brain areas.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.3389/fninf.2015.00002
FRONTIERS IN NEUROINFORMATICS
Keywords
DocType
Volume
connectomics,virtual reality,neural dynamics,large-scale brain networks,big data,virtual neurosurgery
Journal
9
ISSN
Citations 
PageRank 
1662-5196
16
1.18
References 
Authors
12
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Xerxes D. Arsiwalla18417.84
Riccardo Zucca27011.03
Alberto Betella38610.99
Enrique Martínez4262.15
david dalmazzo5161.18
Pedro Omedas6929.87
Gustavo Deco71004156.20
Paul F. M. J. Verschure8677116.64