Dynamic functional connectivity of the EEG in relation to outcome of postanoxic coma

•Link Rate and Link Duration are suitable measures of dynamic functional connectivity within the EEG.•Patients with poor neurological outcome after cardiac arrest show less dynamics of brain functional connectivity.•Dynamic functional connectivity might improve outcome prediction of postanoxic coma based on quantitative EEG measures. Early EEG contains reliable information for outcome prediction of comatose patients after cardiac arrest. We introduce dynamic functional connectivity measures and estimate additional predictive values. We performed a prospective multicenter cohort study on continuous EEG for outcome prediction of comatose patients after cardiac arrest. We calculated Link Rates (LR) and Link Durations (LD) in the α, δ, and θ band, based on similarity of instantaneous frequencies in five-minute EEG epochs, hourly, during 3 days after cardiac arrest. We studied associations of LR and LD with good (Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) 1–2) or poor outcome (CPC 3–5) with univariate analyses. With random forest classification, we established EEG-based predictive models. We used receiver operating characteristics to estimate additional values of dynamic connectivity measures for outcome prediction. Of 683 patients, 369 (54%) had poor outcome. Patients with poor outcome had significantly lower LR and longer LD, with largest differences 12 h after cardiac arrest (LRθ 1.87 vs. 1.95 Hz and LDα 91 vs. 82 ms). Adding these measures to a model with classical EEG features increased sensitivity for reliable prediction of poor outcome from 34% to 38% at 12 h after cardiac arrest. Poor outcome is associated with lower dynamics of connectivity after cardiac arrest. Dynamic functional connectivity analysis may improve EEG based outcome prediction.