From homeostasis to behavior: Balanced activity in an exploration of embodied dynamic environmental-neural interaction
PLoS Computational Biology August 24, 2017 Peter J. Hellyer, Claudia Clopath, Angie A. Kehagia et al. 21 citations
A simple computational model of spontaneous neural dynamics controlling an agent in a virtual environment shows that brain-environment feedback can rapidly destabilize neural and behavioral dynamics, requiring homeostatic mechanisms. Local homeostatic plasticity, where inhibition adjusts to balance excitation, and global mechanisms, where regional task-negative activity compensates for task-positive sensory input in another region, both stabilize behavior. The results suggest complementary functional roles for local and macroscale homeostatic processes and propose a novel function for macroscopic task-negative activity patterns, such as the default mode network, in maintaining stable neural and behavioral dynamics.