Understanding the mechanisms of brain functions from the angle of synchronization and complex network

The human brain is the most complicated and fascinated system and executes various important brain functions, but its underlying mechanism is a long-standing problem. In recent years, based on the progress of complex network science, much attention has been paid to this problem and many important results have been achieved, thus it is the time to make a summary to help further studies. For this purpose, we here make a brief but comprehensive review on those results from the aspect of brain networks, i.e., from the angle of synchronization and complex network. First, we briefly discuss the main features of human brain and its cognitive functions through synchronization. Then, we discuss how to construct both the anatomical and functional brain networks, including the pathological brain networks such as epilepsy and Alzheimer’s diseases. Next, we discuss the approaches of studying brain networks. After that, we discuss the current progress of understanding the mechanisms of brain functions, including the aspects of chimera state, remote synchronization, explosive synchronization, intelligence quotient, and remote propagation. Finally, we make a brief discussion on the envision of future study. [Figure not available: see fulltext.]