Communications Biology
May 9, 2023
Philipp Klar, Yasir Çatal, Robert Langner et al.
35 citations
Scale-free physiological processes are common in the human body. Resting-state fMRI studies found that anesthesia eliminates scale-free dynamics. This study examines scale-free dynamics in the cerebral cortex's unimodal periphery and transmodal core during rest and tasks at three conscious levels (awake, sedation, anesthesia), complemented by computational modeling. The results show that anesthesia transforms pink noise into white noise, disrupting the brain's alignment with a task's temporal structure. The model indicates that stimuli with pink noise, unlike brown or white noise, modulate task-related activity. The findings support two mechanisms of consciousness—temporo-spatial nestedness and alignment—proposed by the Temporo-Spatial Theory of Consciousness.
NeuroImage
August 15, 2024
Bianca Ventura, Yasir Çatal, Angelika Wolman et al.
22 citations
Meditation practices with a wider attentional focus, such as Shoonya meditation, are associated with longer intrinsic neural timescales (INTs) in the brain, measured as the autocorrelation window (ACW) of EEG signals, compared to practices with a narrower focus like Mantra or Vipassana meditation. The study compared three groups of highly proficient practitioners from different traditions and a meditation-naïve control group. The results indicate a correspondence between the width of attentional scope and the duration of neural temporal windows, suggesting that subjective attentional width relates to objective neural activity patterns.
Brain Communications
January 1, 2024
Yasir Çatal, Georg Northoff
3 citations
A commentary on a study about brain dynamics that predict response to psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. The original study by Vohryzek and colleagues investigated how brain activity patterns before and during psilocybin treatment might identify which patients with treatment-resistant depression are likely to benefit. The commentary discusses the implications of these findings for understanding how psychedelics work in the brain and for developing personalized treatment approaches.
Computers in biology and medicine
October 1, 2025
Andrea Buccellato, Di Zang, Yasir Çatal et al.
The brain's spontaneous activity has intrinsic durations—Intrinsic Neural Timescales (INTs)—that are hierarchically organized, with shorter durations in sensory regions and longer ones in association areas. This study shows that the topographic organization of INTs is not fixed but dynamically changes over time. Healthy individuals exhibit transitions between different INT states that are moderately predictable and show memory effects. In people with disorders of consciousness, these transitions become less predictable and show reduced memory effects, suggesting that the temporal richness of INT state transitions is important for maintaining normal consciousness.