EEG Connectivity is an Objective Signature of Reduced Consciousness and Sleep Depth.

ABSTRACT: Different levels of reduced consciousness characterise human sleep stages at the behavioural level. On electroencephalography (EEG), the identification of sleep stages predominantly relies on localised oscillatory power within distinct frequency bands. Several theoretical frameworks converge on the central significance of long-range information sharing in maintaining consciousness, which experimentally manifests as high functional connectivity (FC) between distant brain regions. Here, we test the hypothesis that EEG-FC reflects sleep stages and hence changes in consciousness. We retrospectively investigated sleep EEG recordings in 14 participants undergoing all stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep. We quantified FC with six phase coupling metrics and used the FC coefficients betwe

SUBMITTER: Inken T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12413340 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature