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Victoria Bela

Chinese researchers have discovered that genetics influences the brain’s ability to maintain the crucial balance between activation and control, a key element of cognitive function.
There is extensive evidence that brain criticality – the balance between neural excitation and inhibition – enhances its information processing capabilities.
But despite the significance of brain criticality and its potential influence on neurological and psychiatric disorders, the genetic basis of this state had been “largely unexplored”, according to researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ biophysics and automation institutes.
“We demonstrate that genetic factors significantly influence brain criticality across various scales, from specific brain regions to large-scale networks,” the team said in their paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month.
They also established a link between criticality and cognitive functions, suggesting a shared genetic foundation.
“These findings position brain criticality as a biological phenotype, opening broad avenues for exploring its implications in brain function and potential dysfunctions,” the team wrote.
Brain criticality is characterised by neuronal avalanches, or cascading bursts of neuron activity in brain networks.
“At the critical state, the brain exhibits scale-free dynamics, with avalanches observed across various scales ranging from local networks of individual neurons to the global network of interacting brain areas,” the paper said.
It also highlighted “growing evidence” that deviations from criticality might be associated with conditions like epilepsy, autism, stroke and major depressive disorder.


Research shows that drugs that excite brain cells can create a superactive state, while those that calm brain cells can create a less active state – affecting neuronal avalanches, or how brain signals spread.
Recent studies have shown there may even be a strong link between the critical state and consciousness. Understanding the genetic basis of the brain’s ability to strike this delicate balance could offer a “unique opportunity to gain pivotal insights that bridge genetics, critical dynamics, and brain functions”, the researchers said.
To study how brain criticality is passed down through genes, the team analysed resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data from the Human Connectome Project – covering data from 250 identical twins, 142 fraternal twins and 437 non-twin subjects.
They found significant correlations between neuronal avalanche dynamics in identical twins – who are born from the same fertilised egg and share nearly the same genetic material – but not in fraternal twins, who are born from different eggs and share about half their genes, the same as non-twin siblings.
“We found that genetic factors substantially influenced brain criticality across various scales, encompassing brain regions, functional networks, and the whole brain,” the team said.
They also found genetic links between the brain’s critical state and overall cognitive ability, suggesting that higher cognitive functions and criticality share common genetic factors.
The team found that criticality in the primary sensory cortex of the brain, which processes sensory stimuli, was more strongly influenced by genetic factors than the association cortex, which is involved in complex cognitive functions like memory.


However, more research is needed to determine how far genetics influences criticality, since environmental factors might have a greater impact on brain areas such as the association cortex.
Through further analysis with gene expression data from the Allen Brain Atlas, an open online resource that maps gene expression across the brain, the team found that the organisation of critical brain dynamics was largely explained by a specific gene expression profile.
A gene expression profile is the measurement of all the gene activity occurring simultaneously within a cell, which can involve thousands of genes. This provides a picture of which genes are turned on or off at a given time.
The team said that future research could also include patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders to investigate the potential genetic link between diseases and criticality, which could lead to new therapeutic approaches.


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Further research on patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders may give rise to new therapeutic approaches, team says


Further research on patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders may give rise to new therapeutic approaches, team says.


Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)

Chinese researchers find genetics shapes brain’s critical balance linked to mental ability

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Further research on patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders may give rise to new therapeutic approaches, team says

Further research on patients with neurological or psychiatric disorders may give rise to new therapeutic approaches, team says