The neuroscience of delirium: a perfect storm for acute brain dysfunction.

Delirium is linked to generalized electroencephalographic slowing and network disintegration across diverse delirium types, indicating convergent brain dysfunction signatures in hospitalized patients.

• Why it matters: Its high prevalence and association with accelerated cognitive decline, dementia, and mortality leave a major gap: the neurobiology is incompletely understood and there are no delirium treatments.
• What they did: The work synthesizes evidence from electrophysiology, neuroimaging, biomarkers, and emerging animal models, framing delirium as an interaction between acute systemic or cerebral stressors and pre-existing vulnerabilities.
• The result: The convergent signatures suggest that neuromodulatory disruption, energy metabolism impairment, and neuroimmune signalling may underlie large-scale brain dysfunction, informing mechanistic targets for future therapies.

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