ArticleNeuroImage. Clinical2021
Preserved fractal character of structural brain networks is associated with covert consciousness after severe brain injury.
Article in NeuroImage. Clinical, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 26 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cognitive Motor Dissociation in Disorders of Consciousness: An Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis.European journal of neurology · 2026Pooled it
- Temporal network instability and low-frequency overconnectivity underlie disorders of consciousness in severe brain injury.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cortical changes in women with systemic lupus erythematosus with mild cognitive impairment: a voxel-based morphometry and surface-based morphometry study.Lupus science & medicine · 2025Article
- Fractal analysis of healthy and diseased vasculature in pediatric Moyamoya disease.Interventional neuroradiology : journal of peritherapeutic neuroradiology, surgical procedures and related neurosciences · 2025Article
- Graph models of brain state in deep anesthesia reveal sink state dynamics of reduced spatiotemporal complexity.Network neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Dynamical structure-function correlations provide robust and generalizable signatures of consciousness in humans.Communications biology · 2024Article
- The Constrained Disorder Principle May Account for Consciousness.Brain sciences · 2024Review
- Cognitive Motor Dissociation: Gap Analysis and Future Directions.Neurocritical care · 2024Article
- Box-Counting Fractal Analysis: A Primer for the Clinician.Advances in neurobiology · 2024Article
- Injury patterns associated with cognitive motor dissociation.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2023Article
- Computational modelling in disorders of consciousness: Closing the gap towards personalised models for restoring consciousness.NeuroImage · 2023Article
- Reduced emergent character of neural dynamics in patients with a disrupted connectome.NeuroImage · 2023Article
- Distributed harmonic patterns of structure-function dependence orchestrate human consciousness.Communications biology · 2023Article
- A strategy of model space search for dynamic causal modeling in task fMRI data exploratory analysis.Physical and engineering sciences in medicine · 2022Article
- May the 4C's be with you: an overview of complexity-inspired frameworks for analysing resting-state neuroimaging data.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2022Review
- Whole-brain modelling identifies distinct but convergent paths to unconsciousness in anaesthesia and disorders of consciousness.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Mechanisms Underlying Disorders of Consciousness: Bridging Gaps to Move Toward an Integrated Translational Science.Neurocritical care · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Self-similarity is ubiquitous throughout natural phenomena, including the human brain. Recent evidence indicates that fractal dimension of functional brain networks, a measure of self-similarity, is diminished in patients diagnosed with disorders of consciousness arising from severe brain injury. Here, we set out to investigate whether loss of self-similarity is observed in the structural connectome of patients with disorders of consciousness. Using diffusion MRI tractography from N = 11 patients in a minimally conscious state (MCS), N = 10 patients diagnosed with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS), and N = 20 healthy controls, we show that fractal dimension of structural brain networks is diminished in DOC patients. Remarkably, we also show that fractal dimension of structural brain networks is preserved in patients who exhibit evidence of covert consciousness by performing mental imagery tasks during functional MRI scanning. These results demonstrate that differences in fractal dimension of structural brain networks are quantitatively associated with chronic loss of consciousness induced by severe brain injury, highlighting the close connection between structural organisation of the human brain and its ability to support cognitive function.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.