Nonequilibrium Green's Functions for Functional Connectivity in the Brain

Phys Rev Lett. 2021 Mar 19;126(11):118102. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.118102.

Abstract

A theoretical framework describing the set of interactions between neurons in the brain, or functional connectivity, should include dynamical functions representing the propagation of signal from one neuron to another. Green's functions and response functions are natural candidates for this but, while they are conceptually very useful, they are usually defined only for linear time-translationally invariant systems. The brain, instead, behaves nonlinearly and in a time-dependent way. Here, we use nonequilibrium Green's functions to describe the time-dependent functional connectivity of a continuous-variable network of neurons. We show how the connectivity is related to the measurable response functions, and provide two illustrative examples via numerical calculations, inspired from Caenorhabditis elegans.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Caenorhabditis elegans
  • Cell Communication / physiology
  • Connectome / methods
  • Models, Neurological*
  • Nerve Net / physiology
  • Neurons / physiology