Differences in the scaling of spatial Information-processing signatures in mouse cortex

Long-range correlations have been a signature of the critical state in various complex systems. Self-similar correlation lengths have been reported in human brain imaging studies. The evidence of long-range interactions, avalanche dynamics and other signatures of structural and functional properties of the brain form the basis of the critical brain hypothesis. Recent developments in information theory have enabled us to decompose the nature of the correlation between two brain regions in different modes of information processing. Primarily, synergistic and redundant modes characterise information that is complementary versus identical between two brain regions. Combining these measures with calcium imaging over a wide field of view has enabled us to study the spatial distribution of synergistic and redundant modes of information processing at the neuronal scale. We find that synergistic interactions exhibit large information-correlation lengths over the entire field of view, while redundant interactions decayed significantly faster.

On the other hand, time delays associated with redundant interactions increased with spatial distance, while synergistic interactions acted with similar time delays across the field of view. We present these results across different tasks and the rest states to underscore the robustness of these results. These results bring forward tools from information theory to refine the brain criticality hypothesis and develop precise functional markers of distance from criticality.