Directed information transfer in scalp electroencephalographic recordings: insights on disorders of consciousness

The neural mechanisms underlying electrophysiological changes observed in patients with disorders of consciousness following a coma remain poorly understood. The aim of this study is to investigate the mechanisms underlying the differences in spontaneous electroencephalography (EEG) between patients in vegetative/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, minimally conscious state, emergence of the minimally conscious state and age-matched healthy control subjects. Forty recordings of spontaneous scalp EEG were performed in 27 patients who were comatose on admission, and on healthy controls. Multivariate Granger causality and transfer entropy were applied to the data. Distinctive patterns of putative bottlenecks of information were associated with each conscious state. Healthy controls are characterized by a greater amount of synergetic contributions from duplets of variables. In conclusion a novel set of measures was tested to get a new insight on the pattern of information transfer in a network of scalp electrodes in patients with disorders of consciousness.