NEUROCONSC aims to find the limits of subliminal information processing and to clarify the brain function and architecture underlying conscious processing in adults, infants, patients and non-human primates.
(1) Experimental tests applicable to nonverbal organisms that can reveal behavioral and brain signatures of conscious processing will be designed. These tests, called rule extraction and central collision, respectively, each include an automatic sensory component and a central component assumed to require conscious access.
(2) Using these tests, brain signatures of non-conscious and conscious processing will be identified using neuroimaging techniques (ERP, MEG, fMRI, intracranial recordings) in normal human adults. To validate this approach, we will manipulate stimulus perceptibility (masking), attention (distraction by another task) and vigilance (sleep and anesthesia).
(3) The approach will then be extended to brain-injured adults with coma, persistent vegetative state, or minimal consciousness to detect residual processing and obtain predictors of recovery. Computer systems will be designed to extract signatures of conscious processing in real time.
(4) The first appearance of these signatures in childhood will also be examined. 
(5) Finally, fMRI activation in monkeys will be measured during the same tests, allowing a direct comparison of simian and human signatures of conscious processing. The effects of anesthesia on the loss of these signatures and the potential beneficial impact of thalamic stimulation on their restoration will be studied.

This research will clarify the brain mechanisms of conscious processing, shed light on their ontogeny and phylogeny, and pave the way for clinical intervention studies in patients with consciousness disorders.  

researcher: Stanislas Dehaene

Contact :  Stanislas Dehaene

agreement id : 249830