Intracranial neural representation of phenomenal and access consciousness in the human brain.

Neural activity related to visual awareness shows a bimodal latency distribution, with early and late responses in distinct brain regions, except in the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC), which contains both. This suggests the lPFC links phenomenal and access consciousness, though the division is not as simple as previously thought. In four patients with bilateral prefrontal electrodes, early awareness-related activity was only on the opposite side of the brain, while late activity appeared on both sides. Information flowed from early to late sites. These intracranial recordings provide the first local field potential evidence for distinct neural correlates of phenomenal and access consciousness, clarifying their spatiotemporal dynamics.

Study at a glance

Abstract

After more than 30 years of extensive investigation, impressive progress has been made in identifying the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). However, the functional role of spatiotemporally distinct consciousness-related neural activity in conscious perception is debated. An influential framework proposed that consciousness-related neural activities could be dissociated into two distinct processes: phenomenal and access consciousness. However, though hotly debated, its authenticity has not been examined in a single paradigm with more informative intracranial recordings. In the present study, we employed a visual awareness task and recorded the local field potential (LFP) of patients with electrodes implanted in cortical and subcortical regions. Overall, we found that the latency of visual awareness-related activity exhibited a bimodal distribution, and the recording sites with short and long latencies were largely separated in location, except in the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC). The mixture of short and long latencies in the lPFC indicates that it plays a critical role in linking phenomenal and access consciousness. However, the division between the two is not as simple as the central sulcus, as proposed previously. Moreover, in 4 patients with electrodes implanted in the bilateral prefrontal cortex, early awareness-related activity was confined to the contralateral side, while late awareness-related activity appeared on both sides. Finally, Granger causality analysis showed that awareness-related information flowed from the early sites to the late sites. These results provide the first LFP evidence of neural correlates of phenomenal and access consciousness, which sheds light on the spatiotemporal dynamics of NCC in the human brain.