ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2016
Large-scale signatures of unconsciousness are consistent with a departure from critical dynamics.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 96 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
96 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 206 citations in OpenAlex.
- Is criticality a unified setpoint of brain function?Neuron · 2025Pooled it
- A three-component dynamical index of consciousness-related neural organisation.Biological cybernetics · 2026Article
- Cortical Mechanisms Contributing to Ketamine-Induced Dissociation.The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry · 2026Review
- Synergy mediates long-range correlations in the visual cortex near criticality.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2026Article
- Toward a true understanding of consciousness: the explanatory power behind the non-physicalist paradigm.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Synergy mediates Long-Range Correlations in the Visual Cortex Near Criticality.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Spatiotemporal brain complexity quantifies consciousness outside of perturbation paradigms.eLife · 2025Article
- Genetic contributions to brain criticality and its relationship with human cognitive functions.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- General anaesthesia decreases the uniqueness of brain functional connectivity across individuals and species.Nature human behaviour · 2025Article
- Connectome harmonic decomposition tracks the presence of disconnected consciousness during ketamine-induced unresponsiveness.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Article
- Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Perturbs the Brain-Wide Excitation-Inhibition Balance: Associations with Microcircuit Organization, Clinical Parameters, and Cognitive Dysfunction.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2025Article
- Macroscopic quantum effects in the brain: new insights into the fundamental principle underlying conscious processes.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Role of homeostatic plasticity in critical brain dynamics following focal stroke lesions.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Transient brain activity dynamics discriminate levels of consciousness during anesthesia.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Psilocybin enhances insightfulness in meditation: a perspective on the global topology of brain imaging during meditation.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Article
- Brain state identification and neuromodulation to promote recovery of consciousness.Brain communications · 2024Review
- The nature of consciousness in anaesthesia.BJA open · 2023Review
- Criticality of resting-state EEG predicts perturbational complexity and level of consciousness during anesthesia.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
36 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Loss of cortical integration and changes in the dynamics of electrophysiological brain signals characterize the transition from wakefulness towards unconsciousness. In this study, we arrive at a basic model explaining these observations based on the theory of phase transitions in complex systems. We studied the link between spatial and temporal correlations of large-scale brain activity recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging during wakefulness, propofol-induced sedation and loss of consciousness and during the subsequent recovery. We observed that during unconsciousness activity in frontothalamic regions exhibited a reduction of long-range temporal correlations and a departure of functional connectivity from anatomical constraints. A model of a system exhibiting a phase transition reproduced our findings, as well as the diminished sensitivity of the cortex to external perturbations during unconsciousness. This framework unifies different observations about brain activity during unconsciousness and predicts that the principles we identified are universal and independent from its causes.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.