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Brain dynamics depicts an extremely complex energy landscape that changes over time, and its characterisation is a central unsolved problem in neuroscience. We approximate the non-stationary landscape sustained by the human brain through a novel mathematical formalism that allows us characterise the attractor structure, i.e. the stationary points and their connections. Due to its time-varying nature, the structure of the global attractor and the corresponding number of energy levels changes over time. We apply this formalism to distinguish quantitatively between the different human brain states of wakefulness and different stages of sleep, as a step towards future clinical applications.

Original publication

DOI

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118551

Type

Journal article

Journal

Neuroimage

Publication Date

08/09/2021

Volume

244

Keywords

Attractors, Brain dynamics, Consciousness, Energy levels, Model transform, Sleep