Disruption of thalamic functional connectivity is a neural correlate of dexmedetomidine-induced unconsciousness
- Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, United States
- MGH/MIT/HMS Athinoula A Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, United States
- Massachusetts General Hospital, United States
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
Abstract
Understanding the neural basis of consciousness is fundamental to neuroscience research. Disruptions in cortico-cortical connectivity have been suggested as a primary mechanism of unconsciousness. By using a novel combination of positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we studied anesthesia-induced unconsciousness and recovery using the α2-agonist dexmedetomidine. During unconsciousness, cerebral metabolic rate of glucose and cerebral blood flow were preferentially decreased in the thalamus, the Default Mode Network (DMN), and the bilateral Frontoparietal Networks (FPNs). Cortico-cortical functional connectivity within the DMN and FPNs was preserved. However, DMN thalamo-cortical functional connectivity was disrupted. Recovery from this state was associated with sustained reduction in cerebral blood flow, and restored DMN thalamo-cortical functional connectivity. We report that loss of thalamo-cortical functional connectivity is sufficient to produce unconsciousness.
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Human subjects: The Human Research Committee and the Radioactive Drug Research Committee at the Massachusetts General Hospital approved the study protocol. After an initial email/phone screen, potential study subjects were invited to participate in a screening visit. At the screening visit, informed consent including the consent to publish was requested after the nature and possible consequences of the study was explained. All subjects provided informed consent and were American Society of Anesthesiology Physical Status I with Mallampati Class I airway anatomy.
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© 2014, Akeju et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Disruption of thalamic functional connectivity is a neural correlate of dexmedetomidine-induced unconsciousness
eLife 3:e04499.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.04499
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