NeuroImage
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During the maintenance period of propofol-induced general anesthesia, specific changes in spontaneous EEG rhythms can be observed. These comprise increased delta and theta power and the emergence of alpha oscillations over frontal regions. In this study we use a meanfield model of the thalamo-cortical system to reproduce these changes and to elucidate the underlying mechanisms. ⋯ Specifically, while observed increases in delta and alpha power are reflections of amplified resonances in the respective frequency bands, increases in theta power are caused indirectly by spectral power leakage from delta and alpha bands. The model suggests that these changes are brought about through increased inhibition within local cortical interneuron circuits. These results are encouraging and motivate more extensive use of neural meanfield models in elucidating the physiological mechanisms underlying the effects of pharmacological agents on macroscopic brain dynamics.
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Neuroimaging research suggests that the resting cerebral physiology is characterized by complex patterns of neuronal activity in widely distributed functional networks. As studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the blood-oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) signal, the resting brain activity is associated with slowly fluctuating hemodynamic signals (~10s). More recently, multimodal functional imaging studies involving simultaneous acquisition of BOLD-fMRI and electroencephalography (EEG) data have suggested that the relatively slow hemodynamic fluctuations of some resting state networks (RSNs) evinced in the BOLD data are related to much faster (~100 ms) transient brain states reflected in EEG signals, that are referred to as "microstates". ⋯ We found that each RSN was characterized further by a specific electrophysiological signature involving from one to a combination of several microstates. Moreover, by comparing the time course of EEG microstates to that of the whole-brain BOLD signal, on a multi-subject group level, we unraveled for the first time a set of microstate-associated networks that correspond to a range of previously described RSNs, including visual, sensorimotor, auditory, attention, frontal, visceromotor and default mode networks. These results extend our understanding of the electrophysiological signature of BOLD RSNs and demonstrate the intrinsic connection between the fast neuronal activity and slow hemodynamic fluctuations.