Simple model of complex dynamics of activity patterns in developing networks of neuronal cultures.

Living neuronal networks in dissociated neuronal cultures are widely known for their ability to generate highly robust spatiotemporal activity patterns in various experimental conditions. Such patterns are often treated as neuronal avalanches that satisfy the power scaling law and thereby exemplify self-organized criticality in living systems. A crucial question is how these patterns can be explained and modeled in a way that is biologically meaningful, mathematically tractable and yet broad enough to account for neuronal heterogeneity and complexity.