Reorganisation of Brain Hubs across Altered States of Consciousness
D. Vatansever, Manuel S. Schröter, R. Adapa, E. Bullmore, D. K. Menon, E. Stamatakis
Scientific Reports February 25, 2020 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-60258-1 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractPatterns of functional interactions across distributed brain regions are thought to provide a scaffold for conscious processing, with topological changes seen in loss of consciousness. Using resting-state fMRI in healthy participants at baseline and two levels of propofol-induced sedation, the study found a persistent modular brain architecture but significant reorganization of brain hubs that formed parts of a wider rich-club collective. Reduced strength of rich-club connectivity was significantly associated with poorer performance on a semantic judgment task, highlighting the importance of this higher-order topological feature for conscious cognition.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Observational cohort Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Healthy participants |
| Intervention | propofol-induced sedation |
| Keywords | Medicine Psychology Biology |
| Key finding | Reduction in rich-club connectivity strength was significantly associated with participants' performance in a semantic judgment task, indicating the importance of this feature for conscious cognition. |
Abstract
Patterns of functional interactions across distributed brain regions are suggested to provide a scaffold for the conscious processing of information, with marked topological alterations observed in loss of consciousness. However, establishing a firm link between macro-scale brain network organisation and conscious cognition requires direct investigations into neuropsychologically-relevant architectural modifications across systematic reductions in consciousness. Here we assessed both global and regional disturbances to brain graphs in a group of healthy participants across baseline resting state fMRI as well as two distinct levels of propofol-induced sedation. We found a persistent modular architecture, yet significant reorganisation of brain hubs that formed parts of a wider rich-club collective. Furthermore, the reduction in the strength of rich-club connectivity was significantly associated with the participants’ performance in a semantic judgment task, indicating the importance of this higher-order topological feature for conscious cognition. These results highlight a remarkable interplay between global and regional properties of brain functional interactions in supporting conscious cognition that is relevant to our understanding of clinical disorders of consciousness.