Neural Correlates of Contents and Levels of Consciousness

Overgaard, Morten; Overgaard, Rikke

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2010.00164

Cited by 43 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…As previously discussed by several authors in the literature (Baars, 1988;Frith, 2011;Zeman, 2001), consciousness continues to be an ill-defined concept. When scientifically approaching NCC, there is an important distinction to be made between the level and the contents of consciousness (Dehaene and Changeux, 2005;Frith, 2011;Overgaard and Overgaard, 2010). In the present context, consciousness is defined as what disappears during dreamless sleep (Tononi, 2008): the ability to perceive anything.…”

Section: Diagnosing Consciousness: Level Versus Contentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain Connectivity in Disorders of Consciousness

et al. 2012

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The last 10 years witnessed a considerable increase in our knowledge of brain function in survivors to severe brain injuries with disorders of consciousness (DOC). At the same time, a growing interest developed for the use of functional neuroimaging as a new diagnostic tool in these patients. In this context, particular attention has been devoted to connectivity studies-as these, more than measures of brain metabolism, may be more appropriate to capture the dynamics of large populations of neurons. Here, we will review the pros and cons of various connectivity methods as potential diagnostic tools in brain-damaged patients with DOC. We will also discuss the relevance of the study of the level versus the contents of consciousness in this context.

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Section: Diagnosing Consciousness: Level Versus Contentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain Connectivity in Disorders of Consciousness

et al. 2012

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“…The other relates to specific perceptual experiences, such as hearing a trumpet or smelling a rose, referred to as the 'contents of consciousness'. Following early suggestions that conscious level may be related to the phenomenological diversity of experience 1, 2 , there has been increasing interest in characterising the interaction between conscious level and conscious content 3 , with recent attempts describing states of consciousness as regions within a multidimensional space 3,4 . Bayne et al (2016) propose that one dimension along which conscious states differ is how they 'gate' conscious content.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Given that an EEG signal can be completely described in terms of its spectral power and phase, what then does LZs add to the description of the signal? One response is that while changes in the amplitude of a particular frequency band are important when describing states of consciousness, for example increased delta power(1)(2)(3)(4) during NREM, there is no single spectral band that displays the same sensitivity to states of consciousness in an analogous manner to LZs. LZs captures the spontaneous signal diversity of brain activity -with the theoretically-motivated link to phenomenological diversity -whereas there is no such obvious relationship with any single spectral band.…”

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confidence: 99%

Increased spontaneous EEG signal diversity during stroboscopically-induced altered states of consciousness

Schwartzman

Schartner

Ador

et al. 2019

Preprint

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What are the global neuronal signatures of altered states of consciousness (ASC)?Recently, increases in neural signal diversity, compared to those found in wakeful rest, have been reported during psychedelic states. Neural signal diversity has previously been identified as a robust signature of the state of consciousness, showing lower scores during sleep or anaesthesia compared to wakeful rest. The increased neural signal diversity during psychedelic states raises the additional possibility that it may also reflect the increased diversity of subjective experiences associated with these states. However, psychedelic states involve widespread neuropsychopharmacological changes, only some of which may be associated with altered phenomenology. Therefore, we used stroboscopic stimulation to induce nonpharmacological altered states of consciousness while measuring the diversity of EEG signals. Stroboscopic stimulation caused substantial increases in the intensity and range of subjective experiences, with reports of both simple and complex visual hallucinations. These experiences were accompanied by increases in EEG signal diversity scores (measured using Lempel-Ziv complexity) exceeding those associated with wakeful rest, in line with studies of the psychedelic state. Our findings support the proposal that EEG signal diversity reflects the diversity of subjective experience that is associated with different states of consciousness.

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“…This distinction between general and specific consciousness corresponds roughly to the existing distinction between the “level” and the “content” of consciousness (Hohwy, 2009; Overgaard and Overgaard, 2010; Bachmann, 2012). However, since we are using the term “content” in the technical way defined above, we will continue to use the general/specific terminology instead.…”

Section: Framing the Problem(s) Of Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 61%

General and specific consciousness: a first-order representationalist approach

Mehta¹,

Mashour²

2013

Front. Psychol.

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It is widely acknowledged that a complete theory of consciousness should explain general consciousness (what makes a state conscious at all) and specific consciousness (what gives a conscious state its particular phenomenal quality). We defend first-order representationalism, which argues that consciousness consists of sensory representations directly available to the subject for action selection, belief formation, planning, etc. We provide a neuroscientific framework for this primarily philosophical theory, according to which neural correlates of general consciousness include prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and non-specific thalamic nuclei, while neural correlates of specific consciousness include sensory cortex and specific thalamic nuclei. We suggest that recent data support first-order representationalism over biological theory, higher-order representationalism, recurrent processing theory, information integration theory, and global workspace theory.

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Neural Correlates of Contents and Levels of Consciousness

Cited by 43 publications

References 10 publications

Brain Connectivity in Disorders of Consciousness

Brain Connectivity in Disorders of Consciousness

Increased spontaneous EEG signal diversity during stroboscopically-induced altered states of consciousness

General and specific consciousness: a first-order representationalist approach

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