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Journal articleMediano PAM, Rosas FE, Bor D, et al., 2022,
The strength of weak integrated information theory
, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Vol: 26, Pages: 646-655, ISSN: 1364-6613The integrated information theory of consciousness (IIT) is divisive: while some believe it provides an unprecedentedly powerful approach to address the ‘hard problem’, others dismiss it on grounds that it is untestable. We argue that the appeal and applicability of IIT can be greatly widened if we distinguish two flavours of the theory: strong IIT, which identifies consciousness with specific properties associated with maxima of integrated information; and weak IIT, which tests pragmatic hypotheses relating aspects of consciousness to broader measures of information dynamics. We review challenges for strong IIT, explain how existing empirical findings are well explained by weak IIT without needing to commit to the entirety of strong IIT, and discuss the outlook for both flavours of IIT.
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Journal articleMediano PAM, Rosas FE, Luppi AI, et al., 2022,
Greater than the parts: a review of the information decomposition approach to causal emergence.
, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol: 380, Pages: 20210246-20210246, ISSN: 1364-503XEmergence is a profound subject that straddles many scientific disciplines, including the formation of galaxies and how consciousness arises from the collective activity of neurons. Despite the broad interest that exists on this concept, the study of emergence has suffered from a lack of formalisms that could be used to guide discussions and advance theories. Here, we summarize, elaborate on, and extend a recent formal theory of causal emergence based on information decomposition, which is quantifiable and amenable to empirical testing. This theory relates emergence with information about a system's temporal evolution that cannot be obtained from the parts of the system separately. This article provides an accessible but rigorous introduction to the framework, discussing the merits of the approach in various scenarios of interest. We also discuss several interpretation issues and potential misunderstandings, while highlighting the distinctive benefits of this formalism. This article is part of the theme issue 'Emergent phenomena in complex physical and socio-technical systems: from cells to societies'.
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Journal articleNayak SM, Bari BA, Yaden DB, et al., 2022,
A Bayesian Reanalysis of a Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression
<p>Objectives: To perform a Bayesian reanalysis of a recent trial of psilocybin (COMP360) versus escitalopram for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) in order to provide a more informative interpretation of the indeterminate outcome of a previous frequentist analysis.Design: Reanalysis of a two-arm double-blind placebo controlled trial.Participants: Fifty-nine patients with MDD.Interventions: Two doses of psilocybin 25mg and daily oral placebo versus daily escitalopram and 2 doses of psilocybin 1mg, with psychological support for both groups.Outcome measures: Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology–Self-Report (QIDS SR-16), and three other depression scales as secondary outcomes: HAMD-17, MADRS, and BDI-1A.Results: Using Bayes factors and ‘skeptical priors’ which bias estimates towards zero, for the hypothesis that psilocybin is superior by any margin, we found indeterminate evidence for QIDS SR-16, strong evidence for BDI-1A and MADRS, and extremely strong evidence for HAMD-17. For the stronger hypothesis that psilocybin is superior by a ‘clinically meaningful amount’ (using literature defined values of the minimally clinically important difference), we found moderate evidence against it for QIDS SR-16, indeterminate evidence for BDI-1A and MADRS, and moderate evidence supporting it for HAMD-17. Furthermore, across the board we found extremely strong evidence for psilocybin’s non-inferiority versus escitalopram. These findings were robust to prior sensitivity analysis.Conclusions: This Bayesian reanalysis supports the following inferences: 1) that psilocybin did indeed outperform escitalopram in this trial, but not to an extent that was clinically meaningful—-and 2) that psilocybin is almost certainly non-inferior to escitalopram. The present results provide a more precise and nuanced interpretation to previously reported results from this trial, and support the need for further research into the relative efficacy of
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Journal articleMcCulloch DE-W, Knudsen GM, Barrett FS, et al., 2022,
Psychedelic resting-state neuroimaging: a review and perspective on balancing replication and novel analyses
, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, Vol: 138, Pages: 104689-104689, ISSN: 0149-7634Clinical research into serotonergic psychedelics is expanding rapidly, showing promising efficacy across myriad disorders. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) is a commonly used strategy to identify psychedelic-induced changes in neural pathways in clinical and healthy populations. Here we, a large group of psychedelic imaging researchers, review the 42 research articles published to date, based on the 17 unique studies evaluating psychedelic effects on rs-fMRI, focusing on methodological variation. Prominently, we observe that nearly all studies vary in data processing and analysis methodology, two datasets are the foundation of over half of the published literature, and there is lexical ambiguity in common outcome metric terminology. We offer guidelines for future studies that encourage coherence in the field. Psychedelic rs-fMRI will benefit from the development of novel methods that expand our understanding of the brain mechanisms mediating its intriguing effects; yet, this field is at a crossroads where we must also consider the critical importance of consistency and replicability to effectively converge on stable representations of the neural effects of psychedelics.
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Journal articleLuppi A, Rosas F, Noonan M, et al., 2022,
Oxygen and the Spark of Human Brain Evolution: a Complex Systems Account
<jats:p>Scientific theories on the functioning and dysfunction of the human brain require a good understanding of both its development &mdash; before and after birth, and through maturation to adulthood &mdash; and its evolution from the ancestral primate brain. Adopting a complex-systems approach, here we propose that the apparent uniqueness of humans&rsquo; cognitive capacities might best be understood as emerging from multiple nested &ldquo;virtuous cycles.&rdquo; In particular, we propose that the intimate link that exists between oxygen metabolic loops, cortical expansion, and ultimately cognitive and social demands is a key driver of genetic developmental programs for the human brain. Overall, our proposed evolutionary model makes explicit mechanistic links between metabolism, molecular and cellular brain heterogeneity, and behaviour that may in time provide a clearer understanding of brain developmental trajectories and their disorders.</jats:p>
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Journal articleLuppi AI, Mediano PAM, Rosas FE, et al., 2022,
A synergistic core for human brain evolution and cognition.
, Nat Neurosci, Vol: 25, Pages: 771-782How does the organization of neural information processing enable humans' sophisticated cognition? Here we decompose functional interactions between brain regions into synergistic and redundant components, revealing their distinct information-processing roles. Combining functional and structural neuroimaging with meta-analytic results, we demonstrate that redundant interactions are predominantly associated with structurally coupled, modular sensorimotor processing. Synergistic interactions instead support integrative processes and complex cognition across higher-order brain networks. The human brain leverages synergistic information to a greater extent than nonhuman primates, with high-synergy association cortices exhibiting the highest degree of evolutionary cortical expansion. Synaptic density mapping from positron emission tomography and convergent molecular and metabolic evidence demonstrate that synergistic interactions are supported by receptor diversity and human-accelerated genes underpinning synaptic function. This information-resolved approach provides analytic tools to disentangle information integration from coupling, enabling richer, more accurate interpretations of functional connectivity, and illuminating how the human neurocognitive architecture navigates the trade-off between robustness and integration.
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Journal articleRosas FE, Mediano PAM, Luppi AI, et al., 2022,
Disentangling high-order mechanisms and high-order behaviours in complex systems
, NATURE PHYSICS, Vol: 18, Pages: 476-477, ISSN: 1745-2473- Author Web Link
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Journal articleLuppi AI, Mediano PAM, Rosas FE, et al., 2022,
Whole-brain modelling identifies distinct but convergent paths to unconsciousness in anaesthesia and disorders of consciousness
, Communications Biology, Vol: 5, ISSN: 2399-3642The human brain entertains rich spatiotemporal dynamics, which are drastically reconfigured when consciousness is lost due to anaesthesia or disorders of consciousness (DOC). Here, we sought to identify the neurobiological mechanisms that explain how transient pharmacological intervention and chronic neuroanatomical injury can lead to common reconfigurations of neural activity. We developed and systematically perturbed a neurobiologically realistic model of whole-brain haemodynamic signals. By incorporating PET data about the cortical distribution of GABA receptors, our computational model reveals a key role of spatially-specific local inhibition for reproducing the functional MRI activity observed during anaesthesia with the GABA-ergic agent propofol. Additionally, incorporating diffusion MRI data obtained from DOC patients reveals that the dynamics that characterise loss of consciousness can also emerge from randomised neuroanatomical connectivity. Our results generalise between anaesthesia and DOC datasets, demonstrating how increased inhibition and connectome perturbation represent distinct neurobiological paths towards the characteristic activity of the unconscious brain.
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Journal articleScagliarini T, Marinazzo D, Guo Y, et al., 2022,
Quantifying high-order interdependencies on individual patterns via the local O-information: Theory and applications to music analysis
, Physical Review Research, Vol: 4, ISSN: 2643-1564High-order, beyond-pairwise interdependencies are at the core of biological, economic, and social complex systems, and their adequate analysis is paramount to understand, engineer, and control such systems. This paper presents a framework to measure high-order interdependence that disentangles their effect on each individual pattern exhibited by a multivariate system. The approach is centered on the local O-information, a new measure that assesses the balance between synergistic and redundant interdependencies at each pattern. To illustrate the potential of this framework, we present a detailed analysis of music scores from J. S. Bach, which reveals how high-order interdependence is deeply connected with highly nontrivial aspects of the musical discourse. Our results place the local O-information as a promising tool of wide applicability, which opens other perspectives for analyzing high-order relationships in the patterns exhibited by complex systems.
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Journal articlePeill JM, Trinci KE, Kettner H, et al., 2022,
Validation of the psychological insight scale: a new scale to assess psychological insight following a psychedelic experience
, Journal of Psychopharmacology, Vol: 36, Pages: 31-45, ISSN: 0269-8811Introduction:As their name suggests, ‘psychedelic’ (mind-revealing) compounds are thought to catalyse processes of psychological insight; however, few satisfactory scales exist to sample this. This study sought to develop a new scale to measure psychological insight after a psychedelic experience: the Psychological Insight Scale (PIS).Methods:The PIS is a six- to seven-item questionnaire that enquires about psychological insight after a psychedelic experience (PIS-6) and accompanied behavioural changes (PIS item 7). In total, 886 participants took part in a study in which the PIS and other questionnaires were completed in a prospective fashion in relation to a planned psychedelic experience. For validation purposes, data from 279 participants were analysed from a non-specific ‘global psychedelic survey’ study.Results:Principal components analysis of PIS scores revealed a principal component explaining 73.57% of the variance, which displayed high internal consistency at multiple timepoints throughout the study (average Cronbach’s α = 0.94). Criterion validity was confirmed using the global psychedelic survey study, and convergent validity was confirmed via the Therapeutic-Realizations Scale. Furthermore, PIS scores significantly mediated the relationship between emotional breakthrough and long-term well-being.Conclusion:The PIS is complementary to current subjective measures used in psychedelic studies, most of which are completed in relation to the acute experience. Insight – as measured by the PIS – was found to be a key mediator of long-term psychological outcomes following a psychedelic experience. Future research may investigate how insight varies throughout a psychedelic process, its underlying neurobiology and how it impacts behaviour and mental health.
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