Department of Neurosurgery, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA.
Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
Commun Biol. 2021 Oct 21;4(1):1210. doi: 10.1038/s42003-021-02738-2.
The return of consciousness after traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with restoring complex cortical dynamics; however, it is unclear what interactions govern these complex dynamics. Here, we set out to uncover the mechanism underlying the return of consciousness by measuring local field potentials (LFP) using invasive electrophysiological recordings in patients recovering from TBI. We found that injury to the thalamus, and its efferent projections, on MRI were associated with repetitive and low complexity LFP signals from a highly structured phase space, resembling a low-dimensional ring attractor. But why do thalamic injuries in TBI patients result in a cortical attractor? We built a simplified thalamocortical model, which connotes that thalamic input facilitates the formation of cortical ensembles required for the return of cognitive function and the content of consciousness. These observations collectively support the view that thalamic input to the cortex enables rich cortical dynamics associated with consciousness.
创伤性脑损伤（TBI）后意识的恢复与恢复复杂的皮质动力学有关；然而，尚不清楚哪些相互作用控制着这些复杂的动力学。在这里，我们通过使用 TBI 患者的侵入性电生理记录来测量局部场电位（LFP），旨在揭示意识恢复的机制。我们发现，MRI 上的丘脑及其传出投射损伤与来自高度结构化相空间的重复且低复杂度的 LFP 信号相关，类似于低维环吸引子。但是，为什么 TBI 患者的丘脑损伤会导致皮质吸引子？我们建立了一个简化的丘脑皮质模型，这表明丘脑输入有助于形成认知功能和意识内容恢复所必需的皮质集合。这些观察结果共同支持这样一种观点，即丘脑输入到皮质可以实现与意识相关的丰富皮质动力学。
