93
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: not found

      Integrated information theory: from consciousness to its physical substrate.

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPubMed
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          In this Opinion article, we discuss how integrated information theory accounts for several aspects of the relationship between consciousness and the brain. Integrated information theory starts from the essential properties of phenomenal experience, from which it derives the requirements for the physical substrate of consciousness. It argues that the physical substrate of consciousness must be a maximum of intrinsic cause-effect power and provides a means to determine, in principle, the quality and quantity of experience. The theory leads to some counterintuitive predictions and can be used to develop new tools for assessing consciousness in non-communicative patients.

          Related collections

          Most cited references47

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          The distinct modes of vision offered by feedforward and recurrent processing.

          An analysis of response latencies shows that when an image is presented to the visual system, neuronal activity is rapidly routed to a large number of visual areas. However, the activity of cortical neurons is not determined by this feedforward sweep alone. Horizontal connections within areas, and higher areas providing feedback, result in dynamic changes in tuning. The differences between feedforward and recurrent processing could prove pivotal in understanding the distinctions between attentive and pre-attentive vision as well as between conscious and unconscious vision. The feedforward sweep rapidly groups feature constellations that are hardwired in the visual brain, yet is probably incapable of yielding visual awareness; in many cases, recurrent processing is necessary before the features of an object are attentively grouped and the stimulus can enter consciousness.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems.

            There have been a number of advances in the search for the neural correlates of consciousness--the minimum neural mechanisms sufficient for any one specific conscious percept. In this Review, we describe recent findings showing that the anatomical neural correlates of consciousness are primarily localized to a posterior cortical hot zone that includes sensory areas, rather than to a fronto-parietal network involved in task monitoring and reporting. We also discuss some candidate neurophysiological markers of consciousness that have proved illusory, and measures of differentiation and integration of neural activity that offer more promising quantitative indices of consciousness.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Breakdown of cortical effective connectivity during sleep.

              When we fall asleep, consciousness fades yet the brain remains active. Why is this so? To investigate whether changes in cortical information transmission play a role, we used transcranial magnetic stimulation together with high-density electroencephalography and asked how the activation of one cortical area (the premotor area) is transmitted to the rest of the brain. During quiet wakefulness, an initial response (approximately 15 milliseconds) at the stimulation site was followed by a sequence of waves that moved to connected cortical areas several centimeters away. During non-rapid eye movement sleep, the initial response was stronger but was rapidly extinguished and did not propagate beyond the stimulation site. Thus, the fading of consciousness during certain stages of sleep may be related to a breakdown in cortical effective connectivity.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Journal
                Nat. Rev. Neurosci.
                Nature reviews. Neuroscience
                Springer Nature
                1471-0048
                1471-003X
                Jul 2016
                : 17
                : 7
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, 6001 Research Park Boulevard, Madison, Wisconsin 53719, USA.
                [2 ] Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, 6001 Research Park Boulevard, Madison, Wisconsin 53719 USA; and at the Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin, 1685 Highland Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53705, USA.
                [3 ] Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences 'Luigi Sacco', University of Milan, Via G.B. Grassi 74, Milan 20157, Italy; and at the Instituto Di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi, Via A. Capecelatro 66, Milan 20148, Italy.
                [4 ] Allen Institute for Brain Science, 615 Westlake Ave N, Seattle, Washington 98109, USA.
                Article
                nrn.2016.44
                10.1038/nrn.2016.44
                27225071
                37a7ed75-1c19-4383-8149-5aae8a2cd570
                History

                Comments

                Comment on this article