Amyloidosis and tauopathy progressively disrupt near-critical dynamics in selectively vulnerable circuits

Near-critical population dynamics progressively degrade with age in selectively vulnerable circuits of APP/PS1 mice, while primary visual cortex shows no such change.

• Why it matters: Selective vulnerability is intrinsic to circuits, but the dynamical signature that distinguishes vulnerable from spared networks—and whether it generalizes across diseases—was unknown.
• What they did: The study recorded single units in retrosplenial cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, CA1, and V1 in young and old APP/PS1 and wild-type mice, testing three criticality-theory measures and avalanche scaling.
• The result: Criticality measures showed age- and vulnerability-specific deficits with an age-dependent reversal in scaling-line effects, and the same signature appeared in a tauopathy model (P301S/E4) in CA1.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.