Critical dynamics, anesthesia and information integration: Lessons from multi‐scale criticality analysis of voltage imaging data
Neuroimage December 1, 2018 T. Fekete, D. Omer, Kazunori O’Hashi et al.
Anesthesia systematically alters the scaling behavior of neural dynamics, reducing neural complexity. Multi-scale avalanche analysis of voltage-sensitive dye imaging data from animals under different anesthetics shows that critical dynamics, which enhance information capacity and transfer, are diminished. These findings are supported by a biophysically realistic cortical network model linking multi-scale criticality measures to network properties and information integration capacity. The results imply that multi-scale criticality measures could serve as biomarkers for assessing consciousness levels.