Brain networks maintain a scale-free organization across consciousness, anesthesia, and recovery: evidence for adaptive reconfiguration.

Background: Loss of consciousness is an essential feature of general anesthesia. Although alterations of neural networks during anesthesia have been identified in the spatial domain, there has been relatively little study of temporal organization.

Methods: Ten healthy male volunteers were anesthetized with an induction dose of propofol on two separate occasions. The duration of network connections in the brain was analyzed by multichannel electroencephalography and the minimum spanning tree method. Entropy of the connections was calculated based on Shannon entropy. The global temporal configuration of networks was investigated by constructing the cumulative distribution function of connection times in different frequency bands and different states of consciousness.

Results: General anesthesia was associated with a significant reduction in the number of network connections, as well as significant alterations of their duration. These changes were most prominent in the δ bandwidth and were also associated with a significant reduction in entropy of the connection matrix. Despite these and other changes, a global "scale-free" organization was consistently preserved across multiple subjects, anesthetic exposures, states of consciousness, and electroencephalogram frequencies.

Conclusions: Our data suggest a fundamental principle of temporal organization of network connectivity that is maintained during consciousness and anesthesia, despite local changes. These findings are consistent with a process of adaptive reconfiguration during general anesthesia.