Metastability in the brain

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Metastability is a new conception of brain organization <ref name="Kelso JAS">J. A. S. Kelso, Review of dynamic patterns: the self-organization of brain and behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.</ref><ref name="Friston KJ">Karl J. Friston, "Transients, metastability and neural dynamics". NeuroImage, 5:164-171, 1997.</ref><ref name = "Kaplan AYa">AYa. Kaplan, "The nonstability of the EEG: a methodological and experimental analysis", Usp Fiziol Nauk (Success in Physiological Sciences), 29:35-55, 1998 (in Russian).</ref>. In the metastable regime of brain functioning, the individual areas/systems of the brain exhibit tendencies to function autonomously at the same time as they exhibit tendencies for coordinated activity <ref name="Bressler SL">S. L. Bressler, J. A. S. Kelso, "Cortical coordination dynamics and cognition". Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 5:26-36, 2001.</ref> (for the substantial review, see also <ref name="Fingelkurts1">Fingelkurts AnA, Fingelkurts AlA., "Making complexity simpler: multivariability and metastability in the brain. International Journal of Neuroscience, 114: 843-862, 2004.</ref><ref name="Fingelkurts2">Fingelkurts AnA, Fingelkurts AlA., "Operational architectonics of the human brain biopotential field: towards solving the mind-brain problem", Brain and Mind, 2:261-296, 2001.</ref>). That metastability (when the system’s degrees of freedom are restricted) is circumstantial for the interaction among the elementary neuronal systems in order to generate adaptive behavior within changing and not fully predictable environments.