Topological Phase Transitions in Whole-Brain Dynamics Driven by Spatially Heterogeneous Receptor Gain Modulation: A Receptor-Constrained Dynamical Topology (RCDT) Hypothesis
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) February 6, 2026 Haolong Wang preprint
The mechanistic link between molecular pharmacology and global brain dynamics remains unresolved - a "scale bridge" problem central to consciousness research. We propose the Receptor-Constrained Dynamical Topology (RCDT) hypothesis: that the functional impact of neuromodulatory drugs propagates from local ligand-receptor binding events through spatially heterogeneous gain modulation to produce...