Consciousness: Neural Correlates and Theories - Week 3 - Prof. Kurowski, Slides of History of Sociological Knowledge

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Consciousness

Week 3

UWS/VS patients

• (^) Recall the experiments by Owen (2006) and Monti(2010)
• (^) but such brain activity did not predict the level of consciousness in clinical cases
• (^) Northoff and Huang (2014): self and non-self specific instructions instead
• (^) for self-specific stimuli: name, love of motorcycle, etc.
• (^) The better the distinction between self and non-self-specific stimuli, the better the prediction of the levels of consciousness

Conscious vs. unconscious

• (^) Childhood events
• (^) Motorcycle accidents
• (^) The Neural Correlates of Consciousness: 1990 by Crick and Koch: The minimal and sufficient neural activity for any conscious content, like color or bi-stable perception.

Information Integration Theory

• (^) Feedback neuronal loops(Edelman)= to integrate information(Tononi, 2012)= represents an integrated visual experience -former student of Edelman
• (^) Functional connectivity in brain(thalamo-cortical system): connectivity and integration of information in brain: a visual experience(e.g., a cat on the street)
• (^) Lack or minimal II(information integration)=low functional connectivity=lack of consciousness: John and Lucie
• (^) As in UWS/VS, NREM sleep, and anesthesia: decreased FC=decreased II=very low or lack of consciousness.

Global Neuronal Workspace

• Consciousness is global neuronal workspace (Baars, 2005; Dehaene, 2011,2014)

• (^) Sensory cortex is not enough: somatosensory or V1 in visual cortex
• (^) Global neuronal networks: prefrontal-parietal, required for consciousness.
• (^) No global connection =no consciousness.
• (^) Prefrontal-parietal “doors” open: this depends on resting state activity prior to: “Yes, I see a cat on the street” or the Necker cube.
• (^) “Globalization”: not present in UWS/VS=no consciousness.

Rest –stimulus interaction

(consciousness)

• (^) Bistable perception:
• (^) R-S activity determines what you will see consciously
• (^) High fusiform area activity=face perception
• (^) Content-NCC
• Not level NCC or consciousness vs. unconsciousness.

Temporal?

• (^) Variability(change) in neural activity:
• (^) Different frequency ranges
• (^) May or may not be coupled/linked together
• (^) Coupling=temporal grid or structure (of brain activity)

Spatial-temporal continuity

• (^) The way we experience consciousness: spatial(integration) and temporal flow -James (1905): “stream of consciousness”
• (^) Think of music or walking through a park
• (^) Imagination/visualization
• (^) Intrinsic activity (and its spatial-temporal grid)= form of consciousness - External stimuli are integrated/mapped on (or not) onto the S-T grid

The hard problem?

• (^) Mind?
• (^) Brain?
• (^) Mental?
• (^) Mind-brain? or intrinsic brain activity +S-T grid – mind?
• (^) Consciousness: basic brain function (e.g., resting state?)
• (^) Role of body?