Dear Editor,Coma, the vegetative state （VS）, and the minimally- conscious state （MCS）, often collectively referred to as disorders of consciousness （DOCs）, typically occur after severe traumatic or non-traumatic...Dear Editor,Coma, the vegetative state （VS）, and the minimally- conscious state （MCS）, often collectively referred to as disorders of consciousness （DOCs）, typically occur after severe traumatic or non-traumatic brain injury [1]. The boundary between awareness and unawareness remains elusive, making it difficult to correctly distinguish MCS from VS patients. It is possible to employ noninvasive neuroimaging techniques, such as functional MRI （fMRI） [2] to assess residual cognitive processing as well as consciousness. However, the causal link between neural activity in specific brain areas and specific behavioral tasks is hard to dissect using fMRI [3]. Therefore, detecting residual cognitive function and consciousness in patients surviving severe brain injury remains extremely challenging.展开更多
When presented with visual stimuli of face images,the ventral stream visual cortex of the human brain exhibits face-specific activity that is modulated by the physical properties of the input images.However,it is stil...When presented with visual stimuli of face images,the ventral stream visual cortex of the human brain exhibits face-specific activity that is modulated by the physical properties of the input images.However,it is still unclear whether this activity relates to conscious face perception.We explored this issue by using the human intracranial electroencephalography technique.Our results showed that face-specific activity in the ventral stream visual cortex was significantly higher when the subjects subjectively saw faces than when they did not,even when face stimuli were presented in both conditions.In addition,the face-specific neural activity exhibited a more reliable neural response and increased posterior-anterior direction information transfer in the“seen”condition than the“unseen”condition.Furthermore,the face-specific neural activity was significantly correlated with performance.These findings support the view that face-specific activity in the ventral stream visual cortex is linked to conscious face perception.展开更多
基金supported by the Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation(2015A030313609)the Guangzhou Municipal Project for Science and Technology Foundation(201508020253)
文摘Dear Editor,Coma, the vegetative state （VS）, and the minimally- conscious state （MCS）, often collectively referred to as disorders of consciousness （DOCs）, typically occur after severe traumatic or non-traumatic brain injury [1]. The boundary between awareness and unawareness remains elusive, making it difficult to correctly distinguish MCS from VS patients. It is possible to employ noninvasive neuroimaging techniques, such as functional MRI （fMRI） [2] to assess residual cognitive processing as well as consciousness. However, the causal link between neural activity in specific brain areas and specific behavioral tasks is hard to dissect using fMRI [3]. Therefore, detecting residual cognitive function and consciousness in patients surviving severe brain injury remains extremely challenging.
基金supported by the Science and Technology Innovation 2030-Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Intelligence Project (2021ZD0200200)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (62327805,82151307,and 32271085)the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (5244049).
文摘When presented with visual stimuli of face images,the ventral stream visual cortex of the human brain exhibits face-specific activity that is modulated by the physical properties of the input images.However,it is still unclear whether this activity relates to conscious face perception.We explored this issue by using the human intracranial electroencephalography technique.Our results showed that face-specific activity in the ventral stream visual cortex was significantly higher when the subjects subjectively saw faces than when they did not,even when face stimuli were presented in both conditions.In addition,the face-specific neural activity exhibited a more reliable neural response and increased posterior-anterior direction information transfer in the“seen”condition than the“unseen”condition.Furthermore,the face-specific neural activity was significantly correlated with performance.These findings support the view that face-specific activity in the ventral stream visual cortex is linked to conscious face perception.
