Self-Organised Criticality in Neural Systems and Autonomous Robots

Evidence for critical dynamics has been reported for cell cultures and brain slices as well as in vivo. Theory predicts optimal transmission and storage of information in critical networks. In this talk, we will ask whether the functional benefits of criticality can have practical significance in applications such as search, memory, learning, and control. In order to answer this question, we will discuss examples from robotics, neural networks and swarm intelligence, and it will become clear that the full potential of critical dynamics is realisable only by autonomous agents in a real environment.