In this talk I will briefly discuss the state of intrinsically generated fluctuations in the neural activity of the cerebral cortex. The viewpoint is from statistical mechanics, complex networks and information theory. The aim is shedding light on nature of such a rich dynamical state and possibly understand how it contributes to functional advantages, including robustness and resilience of information processing. In particular, I will discuss that important benefits can be derived from operating at the edge of a dynamic phase transition, i.e. at criticality, a principle that might apply to other biological information-processing systems.
