The blueprint of human functional architecture shifts from cognition to anatomy during perturbations of consciousness
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.