Minority reports: Consciousness and the prefrontal cortex

Michel, Matthias; Morales, Jorge

doi:10.1111/mila.12264

Cited by 52 publications

(52 citation statements)

References 109 publications

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“…Our findings are in sharp contrast to the conclusions of recent imaging studies showing reduced involvement of the PFC in conscious perception (27)(28)(29). However, constraints in the spatiotemporal resolution of the BOLD signal and its complex relationship with neural activity limit the interpretations from imaging data, especially so, when null findings are reported (65,66). Such limits in spatiotemporal resolution are particularly relevant to the frontal cortex, where individual neurons often display a high degree of mixed selectivity (67,68) or distinct temporal patterns of activity during perceptual paradigms (69).…”

Section: Br Offers a Distinct Advantage Over Other Paradigms Of Visuacontrasting

confidence: 99%

Decoding the contents of consciousness from prefrontal ensembles

Kapoor

Dwarakanath

Safavi

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Multiple theories attribute to the primate prefrontal cortex a critical role in conscious perception. However, opposing views caution that prefrontal activity could reflect other cognitive variables during paradigms investigating consciousness, such as decision-making, monitoring and motor reports. To resolve this ongoing debate, we recorded from prefrontal ensembles of macaque monkeys during a no-report paradigm of binocular rivalry that instigates internally driven transitions in conscious perception. We could decode the contents of consciousness from prefrontal ensemble activity during binocular rivalry with an accuracy similar to when these stimuli were presented without competition. Oculomotor signals, used to infer conscious content, were not the only source of these representations since visual input could be significantly decoded when eye movements were suppressed. Our results suggest that the collective dynamics of prefrontal cortex populations reflect internally generated changes in the content of consciousness during multistable perception. One sentence summaryNeural correlates of conscious perception can be detected and perceptual contents can be reliably decoded from the spiking activity of prefrontal populations.

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Section: Br Offers a Distinct Advantage Over Other Paradigms Of Visuacontrasting

confidence: 99%

Decoding the contents of consciousness from prefrontal ensembles

Kapoor

Dwarakanath

Safavi

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…Still, in more direct recordings unreported stimulus features were robustly decoded, almost at the same level as attended and reported features (Mante et al 2013). Thus, we conclude that objections from the so-called 'no-report' paradigms may have been exaggerated (Michel and Morales 2019).…”

Section: Pfc Is Crucial For Consciousness Not Just Attention or Reportmentioning

confidence: 60%

The Neural Correlates of Consciousness

Morales

Lau

2020

The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Consciousness

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Our understanding of the neural basis of consciousness has substantially improved in the last few decades. New imaging and statistical techniques have been introduced, experiments have become more sophisticated, and several unsuccessful hypotheses have been quite conclusively ruled out. However, neuroscientists still do not entirely agree on the critical neural features required for sustaining perceptual conscious experiences in humans and other primates. This chapter discusses a selection of influential views of the neural correlates of consciousness and the predictions they make. By highlighting some neurobiological and computational modelling results, it will be argued that the currently available evidence favors a hierarchical processing architecture that confers a crucial, if subtle and specific, role to prefrontal cortex.

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“…2 Since these classic studies, alternative explanations of frontoparietal ignition have been put forward, including that it is involved in the act of reporting, but not conscious awareness, or that it reflects greater performance capacity on conscious trials [16,17]. These debates are ongoing (see [18,19], for recent arguments from both sides), but here we put them to one side given that we are content to seek an explanation of report itself. 3 Note that here I am focusing on reportable states of awareness, and leaving aside the issue of whether non-reportable contents may be conscious [20,21].…”

Section: Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Awareness as inference in a higher-order state space

Fleming

2020

Neuroscience of Consciousness

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Humans have the ability to report the contents of their subjective experience -we can say to each other, "I am aware of X". However, the decision processes that support reports about mental contents remain poorly understood. In this article I propose a computational framework that characterises awareness reports as metacognitive decisions (inference) about a generative model of perceptual content. This account is motivated from the perspective of how flexible hierarchical state spaces are built during learning and decision-making. Internal states supporting awareness reports, unlike those covarying with perceptual contents, are simple and abstract, varying along a one-dimensional continuum from absent to present. A critical feature of this architecture is that it is both higherorder and asymmetric: there is a vast number of perceptual states is nested under "present", but a much smaller number of possible states is nested under "absent". Via simulations I show that this asymmetry provides a natural account of observations of "global ignition" in brain imaging studies of awareness reports.

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Minority reports: Consciousness and the prefrontal cortex

Cited by 52 publications

References 109 publications

Decoding the contents of consciousness from prefrontal ensembles

Decoding the contents of consciousness from prefrontal ensembles

The Neural Correlates of Consciousness

Awareness as inference in a higher-order state space

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