The Brain Lives Near Chaos. What If Difference Awakened Possibilities We Have Yet to Use?

From neural criticality to Relational Connectomic Reserve: how encounters between Body-Territories may reorganize our possibilities of Being.

Before Understanding, Notice What Is Happening

As you read these words, you may become aware of your breathing.

There is no need to change it.

Now remember a situation in which you had to abandon a familiar response because you encountered something unexpected.

Perhaps someone asked a different question. Perhaps an event transformed what had previously seemed obvious.

You remained yourself. Yet something changed in how you perceived your possibilities.

At what moment did that transformation begin?

At BrainLatam, we want to investigate precisely the journey between two states: A → B.

Not merely what we were before or what we could accomplish afterward, but the reorganizations occurring during the transition.

Perhaps the brain mobilizes functional possibilities that are rarely used. Perhaps different networks discover new forms of coordination.

And perhaps our relationships with other Body-Territories participate in these transformations.

We do not need to accept these hypotheses in advance.

We can investigate them together.

1. Criticality: When Organization Makes Change Possible

Imagine a forest.

A tree falls. Sunlight reaches new plants. Animals change their routes. Previously unlikely relationships become possible.

No single element knows the entire forest.

Yet local changes can produce collective consequences.

In Physics, complex systems are investigated by examining how properties emerge through interactions among their components.

Criticality describes conditions near certain phase transitions, where systems may exhibit fluctuations and responses distributed across different scales.

In the brain, researchers investigate signatures of such phenomena in cascades of activity known as neuronal avalanches.

This does not mean the brain is permanently chaotic or that every change represents a critical transition.

It means that particular dynamic organizations may exhibit properties favorable to information propagation and flexibility.

And here our first question emerges:

Could what we call stability also depend on the capacity to reorganize in response to difference?

2. Neurobucano: Pernambuco Investigates the Emergence of Organization

The Second Neuroscience Seminar in Pernambuco, Neurobucano, brought together researchers studying criticality, neuronal scaling, and complex systems.

Among them, Mauro Copelli, Osame Kinouchi, Antonio Fontenele, and Tiago Ribeiro have made important contributions to understanding brain dynamics.

In 2024, Felipe Serafim, Tawan Carvalho, Mauro Copelli, and Pedro Carelli published research on maximum-entropy metrics capable of identifying signatures of criticality in neuronal recordings.

The study compares computational models with experimental data, seeking to distinguish critical conditions from systems without equivalent transitions.

This distinction is fundamental.

Finding a pattern does not automatically mean discovering its mechanism.

And measuring a brain configuration does not mean understanding every possibility available to that organism.

Research from Pernambuco opens pathways toward questions extending beyond the localization of neural activity.

How does a network reorganize? Which properties emerge through interaction? What conditions preserve stability without preventing transformation?

3. Between A and B, There Is a Brain in the Process of Becoming

Return to your own experience.

You encounter an unexpected idea.

Before deciding what you think about it, you may compare memories, anticipate consequences, or reorganize your attention.

Not every possibility becomes an observable action.

Something similar inspires our reflection on the brain during change and the 150 seconds investigated by Hutcheon.

In 2023, Evan Hutcheon and colleagues examined relationships between electroencephalographic oscillations and oxygen saturation under different hypoxic conditions.

The relationships observed during an initial phase of physiological change were not simply identical to those found afterward.

The study does not establish a universal duration for brain transitions, nor does it demonstrate transcendence.

Nevertheless, it invites a crucial question:

What do we fail to understand when we observe only A and B, overlooking the organism during transformation?

Perhaps some possibilities emerge precisely through the dynamic relationships reorganizing along the way.

4. Roberto Lent: Connections That May Remain Available

In 2026, Brazilian researchers Roberto Lent, Fernanda Tovar-Moll, and Diego Szczupak proposed, in the journal Brain, the hypothesis of a Connectomic Reserve as a potential resource for neuroplasticity.

During brain development, numerous neuronal projections are formed and reorganized.

Some anatomical connections may persist even when they do not participate extensively in routinely observed activities.

The authors propose investigating whether such connections constitute resources available for future reorganization.

We are not describing conscious neurons waiting for instructions.

We are considering an anatomical and functional hypothesis that still requires experimental validation.

At BrainLatam, we introduce another question:

When we encounter something different, might we recruit functional configurations that were previously used only rarely?

We must distinguish the reorganization of existing networks from the actual recruitment of anatomical reserve connections.

One does not automatically demonstrate the other.

But this distinction allows us to transform an intuition into a scientific investigation.

5. What If Reserve Also Depends on Relationships?

Imagine five people attempting to cross unfamiliar territory.

One identifies obstacles. Another recognizes environmental signals. A third notices changes in the companions' behavior.

No one possesses all the information.

Perhaps one person suggests moving forward. Another interrupts the movement. A third discovers an alternative.

The collective changes its trajectory.

We do not know whether central command was involved. Perhaps temporary leadership emerged. Perhaps coordination developed through reciprocal adjustments.

What matters is investigating how individual differences may contribute to shared possibilities.

At BrainLatam, we develop this question in Could Connectomic Reserve Be Waiting for a We?.

We call Relational Connectomic Reserve the hypothesis that certain encounters may expand the functional repertoire accessible to the organisms involved.

We are not claiming that a collective possesses one shared brain.

We are asking whether reciprocity can modify what each participant is capable of perceiving, learning, and accomplishing.

Perhaps relationships do more than add information.

Perhaps they also change the conditions under which existing resources become usable.

6. Without a Central Commander Does Not Mean Without Organization

In 2024, Sue Rhamidda, Mauricio Girardi-Schappo, and Osame Kinouchi investigated homeostatic mechanisms of self-organization near the synchronization transition.

Models of this kind demonstrate how collective properties can depend on local rules of interaction and adaptation.

But we must avoid a premature interpretation.

Neural networks have hierarchies, regulatory circuits, and specialized mechanisms.

Human collectives may also combine leadership, negotiation, cooperation, and distributed decision-making.

There is no automatic equivalence between neuronal organization and democratic society.

Nevertheless, we can formulate a question relevant to both scales:

How can different components adjust their activities when none possesses all the available information?

Perhaps the novelty lies not in the absolute absence of command.

It lies in the capacity to change organizational arrangements when circumstances demand responses that were not anticipated.

Organized chaos is not the absence of rules. It is the possibility of new configurations emerging through relationships.

7. Ailton Krenak: The Forest Knows Relationships We Do Not Measure

In Futuro ancestral (2022), Ailton Krenak challenges the separation between humanity and nature.

His reflection invites us to recognize that rivers, forests, and territories are not merely resources available for human projects.

They are dimensions of relationships sustaining different forms of life.

This contribution is not a neurophysiological theory of criticality.

It questions which relationships we choose to consider important.

At BrainLatam, we use APUS and Tekoha to expand questions about the body, orientation, and lived territory, while respecting the autonomy of their original Indigenous meanings.

When facing difference, perhaps our adaptive possibilities also depend on the diversity of relationships we can recognize.

But how can we investigate this hypothesis without reducing cultures and territories to experimental variables?

The answer requires collaboration with participants themselves and recognition of their autonomy.

8. Hyperscanning: Investigating the Moment of Encounter

We can transform these questions into experimental protocols.

Imagine five participants solving individual and collective problems, encountering both familiar and unexpected situations.

Using EEG, fNIRS, ECG, respiration, and behavioral recordings, we could investigate changes in neural and physiological coordination, alongside strategies for action.

Hyperscanning allows researchers to monitor several participants simultaneously.

However, brain synchronization alone does not demonstrate shared understanding or the anatomical recruitment of reserve connections.

We must compare experimental conditions, control for common stimuli, and investigate whether interactions produce measurable behavioral changes.

The goal is not to confirm Relational Connectomic Reserve in advance.

It is to determine whether the hypothesis can generate testable predictions and replicable findings.

Perhaps we will identify functional reorganizations. Perhaps only behavioral adaptations will emerge. Perhaps our hypotheses will need to be abandoned.

That, too, is knowledge production.

9. Transcending Does Not Have to Mean Abandoning Being

In our reflection The Moment A Ceases to Be A, we explore how prepared movements may be interrupted, transformed, or replaced during a transition.

Perhaps transcendence, within our philosophical framework, does not mean leaving physical reality behind.

It may mean recognizing possibilities that previously lacked the conditions necessary for expression.

Relational Connectomic Reserve remains a hypothesis, not a demonstration of such transcendence.

But encounters with difference can offer new questions.

You began this reading with certain expectations.

You encountered criticality, neural networks, available connections, and reorganizing collectives.

Has your interpretation changed?

We do not need to decide for you.

We isolate aspects of reality to understand them, not to define the entirety of Being.

In Science, we develop models and experiments.

In Politics, we must discuss who interprets the results and who participates in decisions.

DOING IS SCIENCE. JUDGING IS POLITICS.

At BrainLatam, Jiwasa represents our proposal for thinking about collectives capable of preserving the agency of each Body-Territory.

Neurobucano demonstrates the importance of Pernambuco's contribution to the science of complex systems.

We propose expanding this encounter through decolonial questions, scientific participation, and the investigation of relationships.

Return now to your breathing.

Perhaps it has changed.

Perhaps it has not.

But you can choose what this reading adds to your understanding.

What if the wonder of complex systems were precisely their capacity to allow many beings to discover new possibilities of Being, without requiring anyone to cease being themselves?

Scientific and Intellectual References

The references follow the article's conceptual progression, with hyperlinks integrated into the titles rather than presented as disconnected labels. Each entry also explains its specific contribution to the scientific argument.

1. NEUROBUCANO (2024). II Seminário de Neurociências em Pernambuco. Federal University of Pernambuco and Real Hospital Português, Recife, Brazil.

The seminar brought together research on neural criticality, scaling, behavior, and complex systems, providing the scientific foundation for our dialogue with researchers in Pernambuco.

2. SERAFIM, Felipe; CARVALHO, Tawan T. A.; COPELLI, Mauro; CARELLI, Pedro V. (2024). Maximum-entropy-based metrics for quantifying critical dynamics in spiking neuron data. Physical Review E, 110, 024401.

Researchers at UFPE investigate quantitative metrics for distinguishing signatures of criticality in neuronal models and recordings, emphasizing the importance of rigorous criteria when identifying collective network properties.

3. HUTCHEON, Evan A. et al. (2023). Associations between spontaneous electroencephalogram oscillations and oxygen saturation across normobaric and hypobaric hypoxia. Human Brain Mapping, 44, 2345–2364.

The study examines relationships between EEG oscillations and oxygen saturation across physiological conditions, inspiring our emphasis on investigating the dynamics of transition rather than observing only initial and final states.

4. LENT, Roberto; TOVAR-MOLL, Fernanda; SZCZUPAK, Diego (2026). The secret connections of the brain: a connectomic reserve for neuroplasticity?. Brain, 149(7), 2273–2285.

The Brazilian researchers propose the Connectomic Reserve hypothesis: anatomical connections persisting in the brain may constitute resources for future neuroplastic reorganization, a possibility requiring further functional validation.

5. RHAMIDDA, Sue L.; GIRARDI-SCHAPPO, Mauricio; KINOUCHI, Osame (2024). Optimal input reverberation and homeostatic self-organization toward the edge of synchronization. Chaos, 34, 053127.

The researchers investigate homeostatic self-organization in neural network models, contributing to our understanding of how local interactions and regulation can produce collective dynamics without explicit global planning.

6. RUSCH, Flavio R.; KINOUCHI, Osame; ROQUE, Antonio C. (2025). Influence of topology on the critical behavior of hierarchical modular neuronal networks. Communications Physics, 8, 168.

This research examines how connection architecture influences critical behavior in neural networks, reinforcing the importance of relational organization in complex systems.

7. KRENAK, Ailton (2022). Futuro ancestral. Companhia das Letras.

The Brazilian Indigenous thinker challenges the separation between humanity and nature, offering insights into belonging and the continuity of life that complement scientific investigations of complex relationships.

8. BRAINLATAM (2026). O cérebro durante a mudança - os 150 segundos de Hutcheon.

Discusses the importance of studying an organism during transformation rather than observing exclusively its initial and final states.

9. BRAINLATAM (2026). A Reserva Conectômica pode estar esperando por um Nós?.

Develops our Relational Connectomic Reserve hypothesis, asking whether reciprocal encounters can expand the functional possibilities available to individual organisms.

10. BRAINLATAM (2026). O instante em que A deixa de Ser A.

Conceptually explores how prepared movements, bodily perception, allostasis, and decision-making may participate in transitions between different possibilities for action.

11. BRAINLATAM (2026). APUS e Tekoha - Como o mundo entra no corpo e o corpo retorna ao mundo.

Connects Body-Territory, interoception, orientation, and belonging, generating questions for scientific research that respects the autonomy of Indigenous knowledge systems.

BRAINLATAM | W46/2026 | NEUROBUCANO | BLOG 02/08