  Rich, spontaneous brain activity has been observed across a range of
different temporal and spatial scales. These dynamics are thought to be
important t for efficient neural functioning. Experimental evidence suggests
that these neural dynamics are maintained across a variety of different
cognitive states, in response to alterations of the environment and to changes
in brain configuration (e.g., across individuals, development and in many
neurological disorders). This suggests that the brain has evolved mechanisms to
stabilize dynamics and maintain them across a range of situations. Here, we
employ a local homeostatic inhibitory plasticity mechanism, balancing
inhibitory and excitatory activity in a model of macroscopic brain activity
based on white-matter structural connectivity. We demonstrate that the addition
of homeostatic plasticity regulates network activity and allows for the
emergence of rich, spontaneous dynamics across a range of brain configurations.
Furthermore, the presence of homeostatic plasticity maximises the overlap
between empirical and simulated patterns of functional connectivity. Therefore,
this work presents a simple, local, biologically plausible inhibitory mechanism
that allows stable dynamics to emerge in the brain and which facilitates the
formation of functional connectivity networks.
