Journal Article

Quantifying arousal and awareness in altered states of consciousness using interpretable deep learning

Barra, Alice, Nieminen, Jaakko O., Wolff, Audrey, Rosanova, Mario, Sanz, Leandro R. D., Annen, Jitka, Lee, Minji, Boly, Melanie, Panda, Rajanikant, Lee, Seong-Whan, Bonhomme, Vincent, Casarotto, Silvia, Bodart, Olivier, Thibaut, Aurore, Laureys, Steven, Gosseries, Olivia, Massimini, Marcello, Tononi, Giulio

2022

Overview

Consciousness can be defined by two components: arousal (wakefulness) and awareness (subjective experience). However, neurophysiological consciousness metrics able to disentangle between these components have not been reported. Here, we propose an explainable consciousness indicator (ECI) using deep learning to disentangle the components of consciousness. We employ electroencephalographic (EEG) responses to transcranial magnetic stimulation under various conditions, including sleep ( n  = 6), general anesthesia ( n  = 16), and severe brain injury ( n  = 34). We also test our framework using resting-state EEG under general anesthesia ( n  = 15) and severe brain injury ( n  = 34). ECI simultaneously quantifies arousal and awareness under physiological, pharmacological, and pathological conditions. Particularly, ketamine-induced anesthesia and rapid eye movement sleep with low arousal and high awareness are clearly distinguished from other states. In addition, parietal regions appear most relevant for quantifying arousal and awareness. This indicator provides insights into the neural correlates of altered states of consciousness. The authors propose an explainable consciousness indicator using deep learning to quantify arousal and awareness under sleep, anesthesia, and in patients with disorders of consciousness.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Research,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 631/378/1385/519 / 692/53/2423 / 692/617/375/1399 / 9/26 / Anesthesia / Anesthesia, General / Arousal / Arousal - physiology / Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (all) / Brain / Brain Injuries / Brain injury / Chemistry (all) / Consciousness / Consciousness - physiology / Deep Learning / Depth indicators / EEG / Electroencephalography / General anesthesia / General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology / General Chemistry / General Physics and Astronomy / Head injuries / Human health sciences / Humanities and Social Sciences / Humans / Ketamine / Magnetic fields / multidisciplinary / Neurologie / Neurology / Physics and Astronomy (all) / REM sleep / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Sciences de la santé humaine / Sleep / Sleep and wakefulness / Transcranial magnetic stimulation / Traumatic brain injury / Wakefulness / Wakefulness - physiology