Method for quantifying arousal and consciousness in healthy states and severe brain injury via EEG-based measures of corticothalamic physiology.
Journal of neuroscience methods October 1, 2023 S Assadzadeh, J Annen, L Sanz et al.
A method using corticothalamic neural field theory (NFT) fits to EEG spectra can distinguish conscious from unconscious states in healthy and brain-injured subjects. Healthy subjects in wake and REM sleep, those in deep sleep, and brain-injured patients (unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, minimally conscious state, emerged from MCS) cluster into three groups based on two parameters: the difference between corticocortical and corticothalamic feedbacks (X-Y) and mean neural response rates (α and β). X-Y is smaller in conscious states (wake/REM) than in sleep but does not differentiate among brain injuries. The method can be automated on a personal computer, unlike laborious clinical assessments or measures like Φ from integrated information theory.