Vohryzek, JakubCabral, JoanaVuust, PeterDeco, GustavoKringelbach, Morten L.2023-03-032023-03-032022Vohryzek J, Cabral J, Vuust P, Deco G, Kringelbach ML. Understanding brain states across spacetime informed by whole-brain modelling. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci. 2022;380(2227):20210247. DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2021.02471364-503Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/56022In order to survive in a complex environment, the human brain relies on the ability to flexibly adapt ongoing behaviour according to intrinsic and extrinsic signals. This capability has been linked to specific whole-brain activity patterns whose relative stability (order) allows for consistent functioning, supported by sufficient intrinsic instability needed for optimal adaptability. The emergent, spontaneous balance between order and disorder in brain activity over spacetime underpins distinct brain states. For example, depression is characterized by excessively rigid, highly ordered states, while psychedelics can bring about more disordered, sometimes overly flexible states. Recent developments in systems, computational and theoretical neuroscience have started to make inroads into the characterization of such complex dynamics over space and time. Here, we review recent insights drawn from neuroimaging and whole-brain modelling motivating using mechanistic principles from dynamical system theory to study and characterize brain states. We show how different healthy and altered brain states are associated to characteristic spacetime dynamics which in turn may offer insights that in time can inspire new treatments for rebalancing brain states in disease.application/pdfeng© 2022 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2021.0247complexityemergencewhole-brain modelsconnectomicsfunctional magnetic resonance imagingspatio-temporal dynamicsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess