AI predicts how brain injuries disrupt consciousness — and how to restore it once it’s disordered

Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 24 March 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02223-1

We developed a generative AI framework that learns to simulate impaired consciousness from massive datasets of neural activity, revealing hidden mechanisms of disorders of consciousness. It predicted selective damage to the basal ganglia indirect pathway, abnormal inhibitory cortical wiring and promising treatments, which were confirmed in patient tissue, brain scans and clinical data.