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Toward operational architectonics of consciousness: basic evidence from patients with severe cerebral injuries

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Abstract

Although several studies propose that the integrity of neuronal assemblies may underlie a phenomenon referred to as awareness, none of the known studies have explicitly investigated dynamics and functional interactions among neuronal assemblies as a function of consciousness expression. In order to address this question, EEG operational architectonics analysis (Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts 2001, 2008) was conducted in patients in minimally conscious (MCS) and vegetative states (VS) to study the dynamics of neuronal assemblies and operational synchrony among them as a function of consciousness expression. We found that in minimally conscious patients and especially in vegetative patients neuronal assemblies got smaller, their life span shortened and they became highly unstable. Furthermore, we demonstrated that the extent/volume and strength of operational synchrony among neuronal assemblies was smallest or even absent in VS patients, intermediate in MCS patients, and highest in healthy fully conscious subjects. All findings were similarly observed in EEG alpha as well as beta1 and beta2 frequency oscillations. The presented results support the basic tenets of operational architectonics theory of brain–mind functioning and suggest that EEG operational architectonics analysis may provide an objective and accurate means of assessing signs of (un)consciousness in patients with severe brain injuries. Therefore, this methodological approach may complement the existing “gold standard” of behavioral assessment of this population of challenging patients and inform the diagnostic and treatment decision-making processes.

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Notes

  1. One additional advantage of such a model is the fact that patients in a minimally conscious state and patients in a vegetative state (fully unconscious) have no significant pathological distinctions as it has been shown in histopathological studies (Jennett et al. 2001). This is important because possible differences in states could not be attributed to differences in pathophysiology. At the same time, even in patients with severe brain injuries, consciousness could not be efficiently dissociated from multiple cognitive functions which always “melt” with subjective experiences (Fig. 3). For example, it was shown that the more complex and elaborate forms of conscious awareness found in adult humans are also likely to be associated with greater cognitive capacities (Kinsbourne 2005). This is in fact a limitation of the model, since consciousness is thought to be independent of specific cognitive functions (for a discussion see Revonsuo 2006). For example, consciousness can be dissociated from episodic memory (in the case of amnesic patients, who lack memory encoding, but are still conscious of themselves and their environment) or from language (in aphasic patients, who retain a preserved perception of their environment), or even from the sensorimotor processing (during dreaming, where the subject has vivid experiences despite the absence of sensorimotor interactions with the external world) (for an overview, see Tononi and Laureys 2008).

  2. Curiously enough, the robustness of consciousness level gradation is accepted uncritically in clinical practice. As claimed by Hudetz (2010), although a continuum of states—from wakefulness through drowsiness to deep sleep or anesthesia—seems intuitive, such a one-dimensional model of states of consciousness is obviously an oversimplification.

  3. The strength of operational synchrony for the same groups of patients within default mode network (DMN) that has been related to self-consciousness is reported in another paper (Fingelkurts et al. submitted).

  4. Different EEG oscillations appear to be related to the timing of different neuronal assemblies (activated network parts), which are associated with different types of operations (von der Malsburg 1999; Varela 1995; Buzsáki 2004, 2006). The general assumption is that the functional interplay between units of the same assembly or between different assemblies is based on a coordinated timing that is enabled by oscillations (for a discussion see Fingelkurts et al. 2010).

  5. As our data presented elsewhere (Fingelkurts et al. submitted) have shown, the strength of operational synchrony within DMN follows the same direction: NORM ≥ MCS > VS. It has been proposed recently that DMN is responsible for the self-consciousness awareness (for review see Fingelkurts and Fingelkurts 2011; Northoff et al. 2011).

  6. Human children younger than 3 years are unable to produce higher cognitive processes, full-fledged consciousness, and do not show alpha activity (Başar and Güntekin 2009). At the same time, the brain in such children shows only sparse and weak connections (Thatcher et al. 1986, 1987).

  7. The beta band (along with the alpha band) evolutionary appeared only in primates (including humans), who are geared with a cortical mantle (Knyazev 2007). These frequency bands reach the strongest expressions in humans who are at the same time the carriers of a full-fledged consciousness of self and environment (Knyazev and Slobodskaya 2003). The theta oscillations predominate within the brain of a lower mammals (Klimesch 1999), while the reptile brain oscillates mostly in the delta range (Gaztelu et al. 1991). Neither of these species could be assigned with a phenomenal consciousness.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Caterina Prestandrea (neurophysiology technician), who made all the EEG recordings and Carlos Neves (Computer Science specialist) for programming, technical, and IT support. Special thanks for English editing to Dmitry Skarin. This work was partially supported by BM-Science Centre, Finland. Authors declare no conflict of interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. BM-Science—Brain and Mind Technologies Research Centre, P.O. Box 77, 02601, Espoo, Finland

    Andrew A. Fingelkurts & Alexander A. Fingelkurts

  2. Neurorehabilitation Unit, Rehabilitation Department, Fondazione Istituto “San Raffaele—G. Giglio”, Cefalù, PA, Italy

    Sergio Bagnato, Cristina Boccagni & Giuseppe Galardi

  3. Neurophysiology Unit, Rehabilitation Department, Fondazione Istituto “San Raffaele—G. Giglio”, Cefalù, PA, Italy

    Sergio Bagnato, Cristina Boccagni & Giuseppe Galardi

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  1. Andrew A. Fingelkurts
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Correspondence to Andrew A. Fingelkurts.

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Fingelkurts, A.A., Fingelkurts, A.A., Bagnato, S. et al. Toward operational architectonics of consciousness: basic evidence from patients with severe cerebral injuries. Cogn Process 13, 111–131 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-011-0416-x

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