V-123 | Perturbation of the dynamic patterns of resting-state brain activity in patients with coma

Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience
Author: Gabriel Della Bella | Email: dellabellagabriel@gmail.com

Gabriel Della Bella^1°2°, Benjamine Sarton^3°4°,Stein Silva^3°4°, Pablo Barttfeld^1°

^1° Cognitive Science Group. Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIPsi,CONICET-UNC)
^2° Facultad de Matemática Astronomía y Física (FaMAF) UNC
^3° Critical Care Unit. University Teaching Hospital of Purpan, Toulouse, France
^4° Toulouse NeuroImaging Center, Toulouse University, INSERM

Coma is the complete loss of arousal due to severe brain injuries, posing significant clinical challenges and offering insights into human consciousness. A key issue in managing coma is the early prediction of neurological outcomes, hampered by a lack of treatment strategies and incomplete understanding of brain networks supporting consciousness. Functional MRI (fMRI) reveals that conscious brain activity is structured into reproducible “brain states,” considered signatures of consciousness. While awake individuals display a rich variety of brain states, these diminish under anesthesia and in chronic disorders of consciousness. This study explores how brain injuries in coma patients reorganize brain connectivity, hypothesizing a shift towards less informative brain states, and examines the relationship between these states and neurological outcomes three months post-injury.