NeuroImage
February 9, 2021
Riku Ihalainen, Olivia Gosseries, Frederik van de Steen et al.
30 citations
Using dynamic causal modelling of high-density EEG recordings from 10 people during propofol anaesthesia, the study evaluated how three resting state networks—the default mode network, the salience network, and the central executive network—contribute to consciousness. Loss of consciousness reduced inter-network connectivity in the parietal cortex, especially feed-forward frontoparietal and parietal connections at the precuneus node within the default mode network. Within the salience and central executive networks, unconsciousness generated small increases in bidirectional connectivity. The most consistent predictions of consciousness came from a key set of frontoparietal connections, supporting the importance of the posterior hot zone in explaining loss of consciousness.
The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience
June 26, 2024
Mahan Hosseini, Alon Zivony, Martin Eimer et al.
5 citations
The N2pc and P3 brain signals, which index selective attention and conscious awareness respectively, are temporally linked. In an experiment with 23 participants monitoring rapid letter and digit streams, dynamic time warping analysis showed that the latencies of these two signals correlated in time, both when participants correctly reported a target digit and when they mistakenly reported a nearby distractor. The link was weaker on distractor intrusion trials. The findings clarify the relationship between attention and access consciousness, and the novel method offers a general approach for assessing temporal links between any two time-series processes.
Neuroscience of consciousness
January 1, 2022
Howard Bowman, William Jones, Hannah Pincham et al.
When people see two stimuli in rapid succession, the second one is often missed—a phenomenon called the attentional blink. But a new dissociation has been found: while the brain can encode both stimuli into working memory, people consciously experience only the first. This gap between objective encoding and subjective experience, called the meta-experiential blink, grows larger under greater perceptual overload. The findings suggest that the ability to reflect on one's own visual experience (meta-experience) can decouple from what is actually encoded. Computational modeling using the reSTST model, which simulates parallel encoding but serial conscious experience, fits both behavioral and EEG data. This work challenges theories of consciousness, including global workspace theory and higher-order theories, by showing that conscious experience may be inherently serial even when encoding is parallel.