title: Network dynamics with BrainX(3): 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.
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems Lab, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Xerxes D
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Arsiwalla
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems Lab, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zucca
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems Lab, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Betella
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems Lab, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Enrique
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Martinez
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems Lab, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dalmazzo
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems Lab, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Omedas
authors.affiliation: Computational Neuroscience Group, Center for Brain and Cognition, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain ; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Gustavo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Deco
authors.affiliation: Synthetic Perceptive Emotive and Cognitive Systems Lab, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Spain ; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Paul F M J
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Verschure
keywords: big data; connectomics; large-scale brain networks; neural dynamics; virtual neurosurgery; virtual reality