Neuronal avalanches in level model under the influence of noisy drive

Abstract

We study a neural-level model (Das and Levina Phys Rev X 9:021062, 2019) that exhibits critical avalanches satisfying power-law distribution. The model recently explained a change in the scaling exponent from 3/2 to 5/4, accounting for a change in the drive condition from no input to moderate strength, along with a relaxed separation of time scale between drive and dissipation. We examine the effect of a class of noisy stimuli in the moderate input regime. Applying the scaling method, we compute scaling functions associated with the avalanche size distribution, revealing striking finite-size scaling. For a class of noisy drives, we find that the scaling exponent can take a value different from 5/4, with an explicit system size dependence.