Developing neuronal networks: Self-organized criticality predicts the future

Self-organized criticality emerged in neural activity is one of the key concepts to describe the formation and the function of developing neuronal networks. The relationship between critical dynamics and neural development is both theoretically and experimentally appealing. However, whereas it is well-known that cortical networks exhibit a rich repertoire of activity patterns at different stages during in vitro maturation, dynamical activity patterns through the entire neural development still remains unclear. Here we show that a series of metastable network states emerged in the developing and “aging” process of hippocampal networks cultured from dissociated rat neurons. The unidirectional sequence of state transitions could be only observed in networks showing power-law scaling of distributed neuronal avalanches. Our data suggest that self-organized criticality may guide spontaneous activity into a sequential succession of homeostatically-regulated transient patterns during development, which may help to predict the tendency of neural development at early ages in the future.