The Relationship between States of Consciousness and Brain Connectivity: A Potential Biomarker for Discriminable States of Consciousness

Consciousness is an elusive phenomenon that has remained obscure due to its lack of definition and standardization. To better understand consciousness, resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rsfMRI) can be employed to investigate systems-level mechanisms of altered states of consciousness. Here we use rsfMRI to investigate functional brain connectivity at various doses of isoflurane anesthetic and correlate this with behavioral measures of anesthetic depth. We demonstrate that increases in isoflurane result in decreased connectivity at lower correlation thresholds. This relationship allows us to further characterize different states of consciousness and may provide a novel use of rsfMRI as a biomarker for various states of consciousness.

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