Internal seminar - Rodrigo Cofre (ENS)

Abstract: Human consciousness is supported by complex patterns of brain activity which are indicative of irreversible nonequilibrium dynamics. While the framework of stochastic thermodynamics has facilitated the understanding of physical and biophysical systems, its application to infer the level of consciousness from empirical data remains elusive. In this talk, I will briefly introduce the topic of the study of human consciousness using MRI and show how we faced this challenge by calculating entropy production in a multivariate Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process fitted to Functional magnetic resonance imaging brain activity recordings. To test this approach, we focused on the transition from wakefulness to deep sleep, revealing a monotonous relationship between entropy production and the level of consciousness.