Measuring the dynamic balance of integration and segregation underlying consciousness, anesthesia, and sleep in humans.
Hyunwoo Jang, George A. Mashour, Anthony G. Hudetz, Zirui Huang
Nature Communications October 24, 2024 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53299-x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Human participants under propofol anesthesia and during sleep |
| Intervention | Propofol |
| Key findings | The integration-segregation difference (ISD) reliably indexes states of consciousness, with a profound shift toward brain network segregation during propofol-induced unresponsiveness. |
Abstract
Consciousness requires a dynamic balance of integration and segregation in brain networks. We report an fMRI-based metric, the integration-segregation difference (ISD), which captures two key network properties: network efficiency (integration) and clustering (segregation). With this metric, we quantify brain state transitions from conscious wakefulness to unresponsiveness induced by the anesthetic propofol. The observed changes in ISD suggest a profound shift towards the segregation of brain networks during anesthesia. A common unimodal-transmodal sequence of disintegration and reintegration occurs in brain networks during, respectively, loss and return of responsiveness. Machine learning models using integration and segregation data accurately identify awake vs. unresponsive states and their transitions. Metastability (dynamic recurrence of non-equilibrium transient states) is more effectively explained by integration, while complexity (diversity of neural activity) is more closely linked with segregation. A parallel analysis of sleep states produces similar findings. Our results demonstrate that the ISD reliably indexes states of consciousness.