A neurophysiological-metabolic model for burst suppression

Burst suppression is an electroencepholagram (EEG) pattern in which high-voltage activity alternates with isoelectric quiescence. It is characteristic of an inactivated brain and is commonly observed at deep levels of general anesthesia, hypothermia, and in pathological conditions such as coma and e...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ching, ShiNung, Purdon, Patrick Lee, Vijayan, Sujith, Kopell, Nancy J., Brown, Emery N.
Other Authors: Harvard University--MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology
Format: Article
Language:en_US
Published: National Academy of Sciences (U.S.) 2016
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/102335
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5651-5060
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2668-7819
Description
Summary:Burst suppression is an electroencepholagram (EEG) pattern in which high-voltage activity alternates with isoelectric quiescence. It is characteristic of an inactivated brain and is commonly observed at deep levels of general anesthesia, hypothermia, and in pathological conditions such as coma and early infantile encephalopathy. We propose a unifying mechanism for burst suppression that accounts for all of these conditions. By constructing a biophysical computational model, we show how the prevailing features of burst suppression may arise through the interaction between neuronal dynamics and brain metabolism. In each condition, the model suggests that a decrease in cerebral metabolic rate, coupled with the stabilizing properties of ATP-gated potassium channels, leads to the characteristic epochs of suppression. Consequently, the model makes a number of specific predictions of experimental and clinical relevance.