Synchronization of neural activity across cortical areas correlates with conscious perception.

Full Abstract

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.

Author information

Author/s: Melloni, Lucia (L); Molina, Carlos (C); Pena, Marcela (M); Torres, David (D); Singer, Wolf (W); Rodriguez, Eugenio (E);

Affiliation: Laboratorio de Neurociencias, Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña Mackenna 4860, San Joaquin, 8940000 Santiago, Chile. melloni(-atsign-)mpih-frankfurt.mpg.de

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (J Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Mar; vol 27 (issue 11) : pp 2858-65

Dates: Created 2007/03/15; Completed 2007/04/05;

PMID: 17360907, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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