Signatures of conscious processing in the human brain

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Signatures of conscious processing in the human brain Stanislas Dehaene1* 1 Inserm­CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA/SAC/DSV/DRM/NeuroSpin, France Understanding how brain activity leads to a conscious experience remains a major experimental challenge. I will describe a series of experiments that probe the signatures of conscious processing. In these experiments, my colleagues and I ask whether a specific type of brain activity can be detected when a person suddenly becomes aware of a piece of information. We create minimal contrasts whereby the very same visual stimulus is sometimes undetected, and sometimes consciously seen. We then use time-resolved methods of electro- and magnetoencephalography to follow the time course of brain activity, and multivariate decoding techniques to extract the activity profiles that encode conscious or unconscious information. The results show that conscious access relates to a global burst of late synchronized activity (a cortical “ignition”), distributed through many cortical areas, and with strong inter-areal communication across distant cortical sites. They fit with the theory of a global neuronal workspace, according to which what we experience as a consciousness is the global availability of information in a large-scale network of pyramidal neurons linked by long-distance axons. This knowledge is now being applied to the monitoring of conscious states in non-communicating patients. By combining event-related and EEG-based measures of cortical activation, local fluctuations and global long-distance synchrony, we can reliably begin to sort out patients in coma, vegetative state or minimal consciousness. References Dehaene, S., & Changeux, J. P. (2011). Experimental and theoretical approaches to conscious processing. Neuron, 70, 200-227. Keywords: Consciousness, Magnetoencephalography, EEG/ERP, masking, vegetative state, Coma, MMN (Mismatch negativity) Conference: Belgian Brain Council, Liège, Belgium, 27 Oct - 27 Oct, 2012. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation (only for invited speakers) Topic: Higher Brain Functions in health and disease: cognition and memory Citation: Dehaene S (2012). Signatures of conscious processing in the human brain. Conference Abstract: Belgian Brain Council. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.210.00132 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 20 Jul 2012; Published Online: 12 Sep 2012. * Correspondence: Dr. Stanislas Dehaene, Inserm­CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, CEA/SAC/DSV/DRM/NeuroSpin, GIF/YVETTE, F-91191, France, Stanislas.Dehaene@cea.fr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Stanislas Dehaene Google Stanislas Dehaene Google Scholar Stanislas Dehaene PubMed Stanislas Dehaene Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.