Final proof of role of neural coherence in consciousness?
Melloni et al. have recently demonstrated, in the Journal of Neuroscience, that neural synchrony in the gamma range between distal rain regions is important for conscious perception. The authors say about their work that “the access to conscious perception is the early transient global increase of phase synchrony of oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency […]
Melloni et al. have recently demonstrated, in the Journal of Neuroscience, that neural synchrony in the gamma range between distal rain regions is important for conscious perception. The authors say about their work that “the access to conscious perception is the early transient global increase of phase synchrony of oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency range”
Here we link to the article and some related works.
Synchronization of neural activity across cortical areas correlates with conscious perception.
Melloni et al. in J Neuroscience, J Neurosci. 2007 Mar 14;27(11):2858-65
Subliminal stimuli can be deeply processed and activate similar brain areas as consciously perceived stimuli. This raises the question which signatures of neural activity critically differentiate conscious from unconscious processing. Transient synchronization of neural activity has been proposed as a neural correlate of conscious perception. Here we test this proposal by comparing the electrophysiological responses related to the processing of visible and invisible words in a delayed matching to sample task. Both perceived and nonperceived words caused a similar increase of local (gamma) oscillations in the EEG, but only perceived words induced a transient long-distance synchronization of gamma oscillations across widely separated regions of the brain. After this transient period of temporal coordination, the electrographic signatures of conscious and unconscious processes continue to diverge. Only words reported as perceived induced (1) enhanced theta oscillations over frontal regions during the maintenance interval, (2) an increase of the P300 component of the event-related potential, and (3) an increase in power and phase synchrony of gamma oscillations before the anticipated presentation of the test word. We propose that the critical process mediating the access to conscious perception is the early transient global increase of phase synchrony of oscillatory activity in the gamma frequency range.
Related work:
- Early neural correlates of conscious somatosensory perception. [J Neurosci. 2005]
- Time course of conscious and unconscious semantic brain activation. [Neuroreport. 2000]
- Increased synchronization of neuromagnetic responses during conscious perception. [J Neurosci. 1999]
- Perception’s shadow: long-distance synchronization of human brain activity. [Nature. 1999]
- “Gamma synchrony” in first-episode schizophrenia: a disorder of temporal connectivity?
