视觉意识神经相关物的ERP研究进展

Advances of ERP Studies in Neural Correlates of Visual Consciousness

意识神经相关物是指充分地形成任意一个特定意识体验的最小神经机制。探究意识神经相关物是神经科学研究的重要问题。目前,通过采用事件相关电位技术,神经科学工作者发现三类潜在视觉意识神经相关物,即早期意识正成分、视觉意识负成分和晚期正成分。由于研究设计和实验范式存在不足,三类成分是否是视觉意识神经相关物还存在争议。本文对近些年采用事件相关电位技术研究视觉意识神经相关物的进展进行概略介绍,并主要对三类潜在视觉意识神经相关物的研究进行综述。

The neural correlates of consciousness are defined as the minimal neural mechanisms jointly sufficient for any one specific conscious experience.Understanding the neural correlates of consciousness is a major and challenging question in neuroscience.Event-related potentials(ERPs)provide a possibility to track the time course of neural processing in the brain.So,ERP is a very important way to solve this problem.Three primary ERP correlates of visual consciousness were introduced,including the P1 component,the mid-latency visual awareness negativity(VAN,200-400ms),and the late positivity(LP)in the P3 time window.Moreover,because of differences in research paradigms and experimental designs,the results of these studies are controversial.In this review,we describe recent findings about ERP studies in neural correlates of visual consciousness and introduce three primary ERP correlates of visual consciousness.