Surge of neurophysiological coherence and connectivity in the dying brain

The brain is assumed to be hypoactive during cardiac arrest. However, the neurophysiological state of the brain immediately following cardiac arrest has not been systematically investigated. In this study, we performed continuous electroencephalography in rats undergoing experimental cardiac arrest...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2013-08, Vol.110 (35), p.14432-14437
Main Authors: Borjigin, Jimo, Leem, UnCheol, Liu, Tiecheng, Pal, Dinesh, Huff, Sean, Klarr, Daniel, Sloboda, Jennifer, Hernandez, Jason, Wang, Michael M., Mashour, George A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amplitude
Anesthesia
Animals
Behavioral neuroscience
Biological and medical sciences
Biological Sciences
Brain
Brain - physiology
Brain Death
Cardiac arrest
Connectivity
Electroencephalography
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General anesthesia
Heart Arrest - physiopathology
Hypoxia
Male
Neurophysiology
Rats
Rats, Wistar
Rodents
Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs
Vibrational frequencies
Wakefulness
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Summary:The brain is assumed to be hypoactive during cardiac arrest. However, the neurophysiological state of the brain immediately following cardiac arrest has not been systematically investigated. In this study, we performed continuous electroencephalography in rats undergoing experimental cardiac arrest and analyzed changes in power density, coherence, directed connectivity, and cross-frequency coupling. We identified a transient surge of synchronous gamma oscillations that occurred within the first 30 s after cardiac arrest and preceded isoelectric electroencephalogram. Gamma oscillations during cardiac arrest were global and highly coherent; moreover, this frequency band exhibited a striking increase in anterior–posterior-directed connectivity and tight phase-coupling to both theta and alpha waves. High-frequency neurophysiological activity in the near-death state exceeded levels found during the conscious waking state. These data demonstrate that the mammalian brain can, albeit paradoxically, generate neural correlates of heightened conscious processing at near-death.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1308285110