Recovery of consciousness is mediated by a network of discrete metastable activity states
It is not clear how, after a large perturbation, the brain explores the vast space of potential neuronal activity states to recover those compatible with consciousness. Here, we analyze recovery from pharmacologically induced coma to show that neuronal activity en route to consciousness is confined...
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Published in | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 111; no. 25; pp. 9283 - 9288 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
United States
National Academy of Sciences
24.06.2014
National Acad Sciences |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | It is not clear how, after a large perturbation, the brain explores the vast space of potential neuronal activity states to recover those compatible with consciousness. Here, we analyze recovery from pharmacologically induced coma to show that neuronal activity en route to consciousness is confined to a low-dimensional subspace. In this subspace, neuronal activity forms discrete metastable states persistent on the scale of minutes. The network of transitions that links these metastable states is structured such that some states form hubs that connect groups of otherwise disconnected states. Although many paths through the network are possible, to ultimately enter the activity state compatible with consciousness, the brain must first pass through these hubs in an orderly fashion. This organization of metastable states, along with dramatic dimensionality reduction, significantly simplifies the task of sampling the parameter space to recover the state consistent with wakefulness on a physiologically relevant timescale. |
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Bibliography: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1408296111 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 Author contributions: A.E.H., D.P.C., D.W.P., and A.P. designed research; A.E.H., D.P.C., and A.P. performed research; A.E.H. and A.P. analyzed data; and A.E.H., D.P.C., D.W.P., and A.P. wrote the paper. Contributed by Donald W. Pfaff, May 13, 2014 (sent for review January 15, 2014) 1A.E.H. and D.P.C. contributed equally to this work. |
ISSN: | 0027-8424 1091-6490 |
DOI: | 10.1073/pnas.1408296111 |