[The cerebral substrate of visual consciousness: a neurological approach].

Over the past thirty years, the scientific study of the brain basis of consciousness has advanced through research on both brain-damaged patients and healthy individuals. Certain neuropsychological syndromes, such as blindsight, visual agnosias, and neglect, reveal dissociations that help identify principles of consciousness. These principles are then tested in healthy subjects using experimental psychology and brain imaging. This review focuses on visual phenomenal consciousness, the most studied aspect, and describes how findings from neuropsychological conditions and phenomena like visual illusions and subliminal perception have been generalized. The authors outline a scientific model of consciousness based on a "global workspace" that incorporates the reviewed evidence.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Since the last thirty Years, scientific study of the cerebral substrate of consciousness has been marked by significant achievements, resulting in part from a rich interaction between the exploration of cognition in both brain-damaged patients and healthy subjects. Several neuropsychological syndromes contain spectacular dissociations which permit to identify principles related to the neurophysiology of consciousness. The generality of those principles can then be evaluated in the healthy subject using the combination of experimental psychology paradigms, and functional brain-imaging tools. In this paper, we review some of the recent results relevant to visual phenomenal consciousness, which is the most scientifically investigated aspect of consciousness. We isolate several of those general principles through the exploration of neuropsychological syndromes such as "blindsight", visual agnosias and neglect, and expose how their generality has been demonstrated in the healthy subject using conditions such as visual illusions or subliminal perception. Finally, we describe the bases of a scientific model of consciousness, based on the concept of a "global workspace", which takes into account the data reviewed.