Brain connectivity, allowing information to be shared between distinct cortical areas and thus to be processed in an integrated way, has long been considered critical for consciousness. However, the relationship between functional intercortical interactions and the structural connections thought to underlie them is poorly understood. In the present work, we explore both functional (with an EEG-based metric: the median weighted symbolic mutual information in the theta band) and structural (with a brain MRI-based metric: fractional anisotropy) connectivities in a cohort of 78 patients with disorders of consciousness. Both metrics could distinguish patients in a vegetative state from patients in minimally conscious state. Crucially, we discovered a significant positive correlation between functional and structural connectivities. Furthermore, we showed that this structure-function relationship is more specifically observed when considering structural connectivity within the intra- and inter-hemispheric long-distance cortico-cortical bundles involved in the Global Neuronal Workspace (GNW) theory of consciousness, thus supporting predictions of this model. Altogether, these results support the interest of multimodal assessments of brain connectivity in refining the diagnostic evaluation of patients with disorders of consciousness.

大脑连接允许信息在不同的皮质区域之间共享，从而以集成的方式进行处理，长期以来一直被认为对意识至关重要。然而，人们对功能性皮质间相互作用和其背后的结构连接之间的关系知之甚少。在目前的工作中，我们在 78 名患有脑功能障碍的患者中探索了功能性（使用基于脑电图的指标：theta 频带中的中位加权符号互信息）和结构性（使用基于脑 MRI 的指标：分数各向异性）连接性。意识障碍。这两个指标都可以区分植物人状态的患者和最低意识状态的患者。至关重要的是，我们发现功能连接性和结构连接性之间存在显着的正相关性。此外，我们表明，当考虑涉及全球神经元工作空间（GNW）意识理论的半球内和半球间长距离皮质皮质束内的结构连通性时，可以更具体地观察到这种结构-功能关系，从而支持以下预测：这个模型。总而言之，这些结果支持了大脑连接性多模式评估在改进意识障碍患者的诊断评估方面的兴趣。