Communications biology
January 28, 2023
Andrea I Luppi, Jakub Vohryzek, Morten L Kringelbach et al.
98 citations
Consciousness depends on how tightly brain function follows the brain's physical wiring. Using MRI scans, researchers measured structure-function coupling across spatial scales in people who were unconscious from anesthesia or brain injury and in people under psychedelics (LSD or ketamine). During loss of consciousness, function more closely tracked the brain's structural connections, a signature that could distinguish behaviorally similar brain-injured patients and detect covert consciousness. In contrast, psychedelics decoupled function from structure, and this decoupling correlated with physiological and subjective scores. The findings suggest that connectome harmonic decomposition reveals how neuromodulation and network architecture jointly shape consciousness.
bioRxiv
November 26, 2020
Andrea I. Luppi, Pedro A.M. Mediano, Fernando E. Rosas et al.
49 citations
preprint
The brain coordinates information from many sources to create a unified conscious experience. Combining network science and information theory, the authors identify a “synergistic global workspace” where gateway regions gather synergistic information from specialized brain modules, integrate it, and then broadcast it widely via broadcaster regions. Functional MRI shows that gateway regions correspond to the default mode network and broadcasters to the executive control network. Loss of consciousness from general anesthesia or disorders of consciousness reduces the workspace’s ability to integrate information, which is restored upon recovery. This work reconciles aspects of the Global Neuronal Workspace and Integrated Information Theory.
bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)
August 10, 2020
Andrea I. Luppi, Jakub Vohryzek, Morten L. Kringelbach et al.
26 citations
preprint
Consciousness arises from how the brain's structural wiring shapes its dynamic activity. By decomposing resting-state fMRI data into harmonic modes of the human structural connectome, a generalizable signature of lost consciousness emerges—whether from anesthesia or brain injury—while a reversed signature characterizes psychedelic states induced by LSD or ketamine, reflecting decoupling of function from structure. This connectome harmonic approach discriminates between behaviorally indistinguishable brain-injured patients and tracks covert consciousness, linking neurobiology to conscious experience.
eLife
July 18, 2024
Andrea I Luppi, Pedro A M Mediano, Fernando E Rosas et al.
1 citation
Loss of consciousness significantly disrupts the brain's ability to integrate information. In a study involving functional MRI analysis, it was revealed that gateway regions in a 'synergistic global workspace' correspond to the default mode network, while broadcaster regions align with the executive control network. This integration breakdown occurs during general anaesthesia or disorders of consciousness, with recovery restoring functionality. The findings enhance understanding of consciousness by bridging Global Neuronal Workspace and Integrated Information Theory, highlighting the critical role of brain networks in maintaining conscious experience.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
April 12, 2021
Peter Coppola, Lennart R.b. Spindler, Andrea I. Luppi et al.
preprint
The diversity of brain dynamics within small-world network topology, measured as sample entropy (dSW-E), consistently predicts levels of awareness across sedation and disorders of consciousness, even after accounting for underlying functional connectivity dynamics. Both subcortical and cortical areas show predictive value, but subcortical regions exhibit higher and more robust effect sizes. The dynamic reorganization of the functional information architecture, especially in the subcortex, emerges with awareness and offers explanatory power beyond the complexity of dynamic functional connectivity alone.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 7, 2026
Andrea I. Luppi, Dragana Manasova, Justine Y. Hansen et al.
preprint
Functional connectivity in the awake human brain is shaped primarily by cognitive co-activation—the tendency of brain regions to work together during mental tasks—more than by structural or molecular constraints. This predominance is systematically lost across five datasets involving pharmacological and pathological perturbations of consciousness (chronic disorders of consciousness; anesthesia with sevoflurane, propofol, or ketamine), when cognition is disconnected from the environment or abolished. During such states, the predictors of functional architecture shift away from cognitive co-activation and toward anatomical and molecular constraints.
Brain communications
January 1, 2026
Dorottya Szocs, Dian Lyu, Andrea I Luppi et al.
The pulvinar nucleus of the thalamus shows the strongest functional connectivity change with loss of consciousness under anesthesia in healthy volunteers, while the ventral-latero-ventral nucleus shows the strongest change in patients with disorders of consciousness. These nuclei exhibit distinct connectivity patterns with higher-order brain networks such as the default mode and executive control networks. In patients, the neural connectivity biomarker mirrored behavioral changes, suggesting potential clinical relevance for targeted deep brain stimulation therapy.
NeuroImage
February 11, 2023
Andrea I. Luppi, Pedro A.M. Mediano, Fernando E. Rosas et al.
High-level brain functions are thought to arise from coordinated activity across neural systems, but this has been hard to test empirically. Using a framework called Integrated Information Decomposition, which quantifies emergence in dynamical systems, the authors analyzed functional MRI data and found that emergent and hierarchical neural dynamics are significantly reduced in chronically unresponsive patients with severe brain injury. Emergence capacity was positively correlated with hierarchical organization in brain activity. Combining network control theory and whole-brain modeling, the authors show that reduced emergent and hierarchical dynamics in these patients can be explained by disruptions in the structural connectome. The results suggest that chronic unresponsiveness after severe brain injury may stem from structural damage to neural infrastructure needed for emergent brain dynamics.
Communications biology
November 3, 2022
Peter Coppola, Judith Allanson, Lorina Naci et al.
Consciousness is associated with short-term brain connectivity transitions that are less predictable, quicker, but on average more constant than those in unconscious states. By combining modern consciousness theories with phenomenology and dynamical systems theory, the authors created an individual-specific landscape of brain connectivity dynamics as a proxy for the stream of consciousness. They found that temporally-specific connectivity states are less easily describable by network patterns distant in time, suggesting a richer space of possible states. The cortex, cerebellum, and subcortex all display consciousness-relevant dynamics.