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Cortical activity is more stable when sensory stimuli are consciously perceived
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Recently, a reduction in the variability of neural activity across trials has been proposed as a general property of sensory perception. However, in order for this increased reliability in the neuronal response to be relevant for perception it must be present at the single-trial level. Here we show that the within-trial stability of the activity evoked by a threshold-level visual stimulus is a reliable and specific indicator of whether or not the stimulus was reported as “seen.” This within-trial difference in stability coincides in time with a difference in variability across trials. We also show that the same neural stability can be used to discriminate the conscious state of brain-injured patients. These findings validate the relevance of transient neural stability for conscious perception.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Schurger, A., Sarigiannidis, I., Naccache, L., Sitt, J. D., & Dehaene, S.
- Affiliations
- Inserm (FR)
- Université Paris-Sud (FR)
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2015-04-06
- Volume
- 112
- Issue
- 16
- Pages
- E2083-92
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4413285
- OpenAlex
- W1991396817
- Cited by
- 155
- References
- 88
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 8
- FWCI
- 10.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Chapman University Digital Commons (Chapman University) (submittedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Funders
- EC | European Research Council (Marie Curie Fellowship FP7-PEOPLE-2009-IIF 252665, Erasmus Fellowship)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Keywords
- conscious perception, trial-to-trial variability, pattern similarity, visual perception, disorders of consciousness, level of consciousness, MEG, EEG, decision-making
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Cerebral Cortex, Consciousness, Consciousness Disorders, Evoked Potentials, Female, Humans, Male, Perception, Physical Stimulation, Sensation, Task Performance and Analysis, Time Factors, Reproducibility of Results, Young Adult
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