NON-EQUILIBRIUM BELOUSOV-ZHABOTINSKY REACTION DESCRIBES THE SPONTANEOUS ACTIVITY OF THE BRAIN

Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reactions describe chemical patterns in terms of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, chaotic evolution of nonlinear oscillators, excitability under the influence of peculiar chemical stimulations. In touch with this chemical model, we hypothesized that the nonlinear brain electric activity at the edge of the chaos could be triggered by neural oscillation equipped with BZ dynamics, and that changes in neural activity might be correlated with the transient occurrence of (either short and long-range) BZ-like reactions in cortical subareas. To prove our hypothesis of neuronal waves driven by BZ-like processes, we evaluated fMRI movies that assess in vivo BOLD resting state activity of the human brain. We found that the spontaneous activity of the brain display features fully overlapping the recently-introduced local circuits based on BZ chemical reaction. Therefore, neuronal paths during spontaneous activity of the brain match BZ dynamics previsions. Our results point towards the brain as crossed by diffusive nonlinear neural oscillations patterns that are predictable. Furthermore, our results suggest that chaotic dynamics arise from nothing else than the network arrangements subtending physical and biological systems.