ArticleeLife2024
A synergistic workspace for human consciousness revealed by Integrated Information Decomposition.
Article in eLife, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
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Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed.
- The entropic brain today.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2026Review
- Dynamic Global and Local Enhancement of Theta-Band Functional Networks as Neural Markers of Spinal Cord Stimulation Efficacy in Disorders of Consciousness.CNS neuroscience & therapeutics · 2026Article
- Charting higher-order models of brain function beyond pairwise interactions.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A three-component dynamical index of consciousness-related neural organisation.Biological cybernetics · 2026Article
- Disrupted integration-segregation balance in the intact hemisphere in chronic spatial neglect.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Competitive interactions shape mammalian brain network dynamics and computation.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Convergent transcriptomic and connectomic controllers of information integration and its anaesthetic breakdown across mammalian brains.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Disrupted Emergent Properties of the Brain in Schizophrenia: Insight From Integrated Information Decomposition of Resting State fMRI.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- The integrated information Φ of an integrate and fire network.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Subtypes of adolescent major depressive disorder characterized by divergent information dynamics in sensory-association cortices.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Synergistic and redundant information dynamics are modulated by Alzheimer's disease and cognitive impairment.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Dynamic brain synergy uncovers functional neural coordination in Parkinson's disease under dopaminergic modulation.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2026Article
- Illuminating consciousness.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Increased integration and synergy in EEG- and fNIRS-based data in migraine patients after a three-month treatment with galcanezumab: relations with long-term clinical outcome.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Null models for comparing information decomposition across complex systems.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- The topology of synergy: Linking topological and information-theoretic approaches to higher-order interactions in complex systems.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Understanding the high-order network plasticity mechanisms of ultrasound neuromodulation.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Toward a unified taxonomy of information dynamics via Integrated Information Decomposition.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Lag-structure in fMRI across Three Psychiatric Groups: State-dependency and Clinical-behavioral Correlates.Brain topography · 2025Article
- Associative conditioning in gene regulatory network models increases integrative causal emergence.Communications biology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
14 authors.
Funding
Abstract
How is the information-processing architecture of the human brain organised, and how does its organisation support consciousness? Here, we combine network science and a rigorous information-theoretic notion of synergy to delineate a 'synergistic global workspace', comprising gateway regions that gather synergistic information from specialised modules across the human brain. This information is then integrated within the workspace and widely distributed via broadcaster regions. Through functional MRI analysis, we show that gateway regions of the synergistic workspace correspond to the human brain's default mode network, whereas broadcasters coincide with the executive control network. We find that loss of consciousness due to general anaesthesia or disorders of consciousness corresponds to diminished ability of the synergistic workspace to integrate information, which is restored upon recovery. Thus, loss of consciousness coincides with a breakdown of information integration within the synergistic workspace of the human brain. This work contributes to conceptual and empirical reconciliation between two prominent scientific theories of consciousness, the Global Neuronal Workspace and Integrated Information Theory, while also advancing our understanding of how the human brain supports consciousness through the synergistic integration of information.
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