Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
July 1, 2016
Michael J Hove, Johannes Stelzer, Till Nierhaus et al.
99 citations
Trance, an absorptive state with narrowed external awareness used by shamans for insight, was studied with fMRI in 15 experienced shamanic practitioners listening to rhythmic drumming. During trance, three brain regions—posterior cingulate cortex, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and left insula/operculum—showed stronger hubs (higher eigenvector centrality). The posterior cingulate cortex, a default network hub for internal thought, coactivated with control-network regions, suggesting amplified internal neural streams. Auditory pathway seeds were less connected, indicating perceptual decoupling from repetitive drumming. This network reconfiguration may support extended internal thought and insight.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
June 30, 2020
Andrés Canales-Johnson, Alexander J Billig, Francisco A Olivares et al.
51 citations
During auditory bistable perception, a sequence of tones can be heard either as a single stream (integrated percept) or as two parallel streams (differentiated percept). Neural recordings showed that when perceptual alternations arose spontaneously, the integrated percept corresponded to increased neural information integration and decreased neural information differentiation across frontoparietal regions, while the differentiated percept showed the opposite pattern. When perception was driven by an external change in the sound stream, neural oscillatory power distinguished between percepts but information measures did not. The findings demonstrate that integration and differentiation of conscious perception map onto theoretically motivated neural information signatures, suggesting a direct link between phenomenology and neurophysiology.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
January 14, 2024
Winson Fu Zun Yang, Avijit Chowdhury, Marta Bianciardi et al.
41 citations
Jhanas are profound meditative states that can deconstruct ordinary consciousness, according to a case study of an adept meditator. Using 4 hours of 7T fMRI data collected across 27 sessions, the study identified distinctive brain activity patterns in cortical, subcortical, brainstem, and cerebellar regions during jhana meditation. Correlations between brain activity and phenomenological qualities of attention, jhanic qualities, and narrative processing showed that jhanas differ from non-meditative states. The findings suggest jhana practice offers unique insights into consciousness and potential benefits for mental health and well-being.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
March 21, 2020
Haiteng Jiang, Bin He, Xiaoli Guo et al.
40 citations
Meditation alters how the brain represents signals from the heart, particularly within the default mode network (DMN), and reorganizes large-scale brain networks. In a large group of long-term Tibetan Buddhist monks, meditation produced distinct, transient changes in the brain's response to heartbeats in the DMN and reconfigurations of EEG gamma and theta band networks. Theta-band connectivity between temporal and frontal regions decreased with more meditation experience, and gamma oscillations became directionally coupled to theta oscillations during meditation. These findings suggest that changes in the neural representation of cardiac activity and large-scale network integration underlie meditation's effects, implying that meditation induces both immediate and lasting plasticity in brain organization.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
August 1, 2024
Evan Lewis-Healey, Enzo Tagliazucchi, Andrés Canales-Johnson et al.
27 citations
Intentional breathing techniques (breathwork) can induce altered states of consciousness similar to those produced by psychedelics. By tracking subjective experiences moment-by-moment alongside portable EEG recordings across 301 sessions from 14 novice participants, researchers found that psychedelic-like experiences—especially intense bliss—corresponded with increased neural complexity (Lempel-Ziv complexity) and changes in the aperiodic exponent of brain activity, but not with alpha brainwave power. These non-linear neural features map onto both broad positive experiences and specific psychedelic-like states, suggesting breathwork alters consciousness through mechanisms distinct from simple relaxation or meditation.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
November 5, 2024
Michael A Cohen, Cole Dembski, Kevin Ortego et al.
20 citations
Using electroencephalography and a no-report visual masking paradigm, stimulus visibility was manipulated by varying the time between stimuli and masks in linear steps (17, 33, 50, 67, and 83 ms). Awareness increased nonlinearly, with stimuli never seen at the two shortest intervals, always seen at the two longest, and 50% seen at the intermediate interval. A neural signal closely linked to perceptual awareness, independent of task, was identified: a fronto-central event-related potential called the N2 (~250 to 300 ms). Earlier signals reflected the linear manipulation of stimulus strength, while later signals like P3b and temporal generalization of decoding were tied to task performance, appearing only in the report condition. These findings inform debates regarding theories of consciousness.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
September 1, 2011
Daniel A Pollen
20 citations
A novel conceptual and biological framework proposes that primary visual perception—the most basic level of awake subjective visual experience—requires more than just attention directed at neurons. Neural representations of image content in early visual areas remain latent until spatially linked to an attending observer via a first-person perspective. The simultaneous emergence of perceptual experience and personal ownership requires resolving conflicting signals between afferent and recurrent projections within and between the ventral and dorsal streams. A proposed 'posterior perceptual core' comprising V1/V2, V3, V4 complex, dorsal areas LIP, VIP, 7a, and motion areas V5/MT, FST, MST, plus subcortical dependencies, encodes normal primary perceptual experience of content, space, and minimal self.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
February 5, 2025
Ruby M. Potash, Winson F.z. Yang, Brian Winston et al.
11 citations
Advanced concentrative absorption meditation produces distinct, distributed brain-wide activity patterns that differ from ordinary consciousness, as shown by ultrahigh-field 7T fMRI in a single expert meditator. Using geometric eigenmode decomposition, the study found elevated global brain state power and energy during meditation compared to control tasks, with mid-frequency brain state power and energy following a non-random, cubic trajectory across the meditation sequence. These brain state differences correlated with subjective reports of attention, meditation quality, and sensations. The findings reveal similarities and differences between advanced meditation and psychedelic-induced states, offering insights into refined conscious states and their implications for well-being.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
January 8, 2025
Megan A. K. Peters
10 citations
Studying subjective experience is difficult because introspection is often considered unreliable and unverifiable. However, the author argues that these limitations do not prevent building a meaningful psychophysical research program that treats subjective experience as a valid empirical target. By precisely characterizing relationships among environmental variables, brain processes, behavior, and self-reported phenomenology, an 'introspective psychophysics' approach treats introspection's apparent faults as features, not bugs. This approach, echoing recent proposals, aims to establish a powerful tool for building and testing explanatory models of phenomenology across dimensions such as urgency, emotion, clarity, vividness, and confidence.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
January 8, 2025
Beatrice De Gelder, Nicholas Humphrey, Alan J Pegna
9 citations
A patient with bilateral damage to the striate cortex, who would be expected to be blind, could detect colored objects, especially red ones, and reported full awareness of the color despite a slow and effortful process. This ability cannot be explained by traditional type 1 or type 2 blindsight, raising questions about the boundaries between objective and subjective blindness and the nature of visual experience. The findings suggest blindsight may play a role in understanding how higher cortical functions are involved in emotions and feelings, highlighting the need for further exploration of visual features contributing to affective blindsight.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
January 31, 2024
Yiyang Cai, Huichao Yang, Xiaosha Wang et al.
9 citations
The sense of agency—the feeling that one's actions cause events—can arise through two mechanisms: prospective (based on motor predictions) and reconstructive (based on retrospective reasoning). Temporal binding, a measure often linked to implicit agency, occurs even when passively observing another's action, supporting the reconstructive mechanism. Using virtual reality and fMRI, participants who controlled an avatar hand and then passively observed the avatar's action showed increased temporal binding. This effect correlated with activity in the right angular gyrus and inferior parietal lobule, brain regions involved in inference and agency processing. The findings suggest that controlling an avatar can enhance inferential processing in the right inferior parietal cortex, producing an illusory sense of agency without voluntary movement.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
September 3, 2024
Sha Xie, Shuqi Lu, Jiahao Lu et al.
7 citations
A randomized trial with 68 children aged around 5 years found that a mindfulness-based intervention reduced brain complexity during executive function tasks, suggesting more efficient neural processing. The intervention group showed significant differences in brain regions involved in cognitive shifting (left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and medial prefrontal cortex) and working memory (left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex), alongside improved behavioral performance on those tasks. The findings indicate that mindfulness training can alter brain activity in young children and support the development of executive function.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
April 1, 2025
Umay Demir, Winson Fu Zun Yang, Matthew D. Sacchet
5 citations
Advanced concentrative absorption meditation known as jhana (ACAM-J) disrupts the brain's typical hierarchical organization, shifting functional gradients toward a more globally integrated state between sensory and higher-order cognitive regions. It also increases differentiation between sensory-related and attention modulation-related areas, consistent with meditators' subjective reports. These findings come from an intensive case study using nonlinear dimensionality reduction of functional neuroimaging data, analyzed with linear mixed models and correlations. The work highlights the need for further research on brain reorganization and health implications of both short-term and long-term ACAM-J practice.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
December 20, 2022
Jumpei Togawa, Riki Matsumoto, Kiyohide Usami et al.
2 citations
Phase-amplitude coupling (PAC) between slow waves (0.5-0.6 Hz) and gamma activities occurs not only during light sleep and slow-wave sleep but also during wakefulness and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, as shown by electrocorticography in 11 patients with epilepsy. During slow-wave sleep, PAC is high over a large region, whereas during REM sleep it is stronger in the posterior cortical region around the temporoparietal junction than in the frontal region. PAC also tends to be higher posteriorly during wakefulness. The findings suggest the posterior cortical region has a functional role in REM sleep and may contribute to maintaining the dreaming experience.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
February 5, 2025
Isaac N Treves, Aaron Kucyi, Anna O Tierney et al.
1 citation
During a breath-counting task, 72 adolescents showed increased static connectivity within attention-direction and orienting networks and anticorrelations between attention networks and the default mode network compared to rest. Dynamic connectivity analysis revealed four distinct brain states, including one anticorrelated with the default mode network that was proportionally more present during the task. Brain state markers distinguished breathing tasks from rest and momentary on-task from off-task attention, but no brain states reflected between-individual behavioral variability.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
October 2, 2025
Weitao Zhang, Zsuzsika Sjoerds, Rebecca Mourits et al.
The brain's metacontrol states of persistence and flexibility are linked to distinct neural networks. Persistence-related conditions activated areas modulated by frontal and striatal dopamine—prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and basal ganglia—indicating goal-directed attention and top-down control. Flexibility-related conditions activated default mode network regions, suggesting reduced top-down control. This pattern was clearer for creativity tasks than for meditation. No significant effects emerged when contrasting focused-attention and open-monitoring meditation, nor when examining brain activation overlap between meditation and creativity at the whole-brain level. The metacontrol model of creativity received partial support, but its prediction for the left inferior frontal gyrus showed the opposite result, requiring clarification.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
August 1, 2024
Koichiro Adachi, Ryu Takizawa
A 12-week online mindfulness-based intervention altered prefrontal cortex function in healthy university students, as measured by functional near-infrared spectroscopy during a verbal fluency task. Eighty-two participants were randomly assigned to the intervention or a wait-list control group. The intervention group showed significantly greater oxygenated hemoglobin signals than the control group, though effect sizes were small. The findings suggest that continuous mindfulness practice can produce measurable changes in brain hemodynamics and that functional near-infrared spectroscopy can detect these accumulated effects, potentially enabling biofeedback applications.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
August 23, 2023
Bryan M Krause, Declan I Campbell, Christopher K Kovach et al.
Theories of consciousness propose that brain mechanisms for losing and regaining consciousness are similar regardless of cause. Using intracranial electroencephalography in neurosurgical patients during propofol anesthesia and overnight sleep, researchers found strikingly similar reorganization of cortical networks. Effective dimensionality of functional connectivity decreased during reduced consciousness (anesthesia unresponsiveness, N2 and N3 sleep), indicating lower network complexity. These changes were global, not region-specific. Brain regions became more functionally distant yet individual recording sites closer to nearest neighbors, reflecting decreased differentiation and integration. This network reorganization constitutes a common neural signature of reduced consciousness across anesthesia and sleep, providing a framework for understanding neural correlates of consciousness.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
August 22, 2022
Perrine Ruby, Rémy Masson, Benoit Chatard et al.
People who frequently recall their dreams show larger brain responses to unexpected sounds, even when actively paying attention to a task, indicating enhanced bottom-up processing of irrelevant auditory stimuli. They also exhibit larger brain signals related to expecting and responding to target sounds, suggesting greater top-down attention recruitment. Despite these differences, their behavioral performance on attention tasks is not impaired, though it may come at a higher cognitive cost. The findings propose that in high dream recallers, increased bottom-up processing may facilitate dream recall by promoting awakening during sleep, while enhanced top-down processes may support dream recall through greater awareness or short-term memory stability of dream content.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
March 4, 2022
Anna Eiserbeck, Alexander Enge, Milena Rabovsky et al.
Visual awareness during the attentional blink can occur in a graded rather than an all-or-none pattern. In an event-related potential study with 32 participants, subjective visibility ratings of face targets on a perceptual awareness scale revealed graded differences in the N1, N2, and P3 brain components across visibility levels. A classification task preceding the ratings tracked task performance. The findings suggest that conscious perception during the attentional blink is not strictly all-or-none but can vary in degree, supporting graded theories of visual consciousness.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
September 1, 2018
R Nitsch, F W Stahnisch
Wilder Penfield's electrical brain stimulation studies from the 1930s to the 1950s were long thought to have uncovered a 'storehouse of memories' caused by neuronal firing. However, a reassessment of his original patient documentation questions that interpretation. Human memory is better understood as context-sensitive and actively reconstructive, not a simple recording of events. Therefore, attempts to reduce all mental phenomena, including memory, solely to cellular and molecular mechanisms cannot rely on Penfield's electrophysiological studies alone as evidence.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
June 1, 2016
Lau M Andersen, Michael N Pedersen, Kristian Sandberg et al.
Two brain signals have been studied as possible markers of conscious perception: an early one from the back of the head (130-320 ms after seeing something) and a late one from the front (320-510 ms). Recent work suggests the late signal may also reflect expectations, attention, and task demands, not just consciousness. Using magnetoencephalography and multivariate decoding, this study directly compared how well each signal predicts whether someone consciously perceives a stimulus. Occipital (back-of-head) sources in the early time window were significantly more accurate at decoding consciousness than frontal sources in either time window. These results challenge theories that emphasize frontal brain regions for conscious perception.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
December 1, 2015
Sabine Leske, Philipp Ruhnau, Julia Frey et al.
Brain regions crucial for hearing a faint sound are already coupled before the sound arrives, forming pre-established pathways that influence whether the sound is consciously perceived. Using magnetoencephalography and graph theory, the study found that in a near-threshold auditory task, the left auditory cortex behaved like a hub and was more integrated into the brain's functional network prior to conscious perception, while right auditory regions were decoupled from non-auditory areas. Local excitability, measured by decreased alpha power in the auditory cortex, also increased before conscious percepts. These connectivity and excitability states were largely independent of each other.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
May 1, 2014
Jean-Baptiste Eichenlaub, Olivier Bertrand, Dominique Morlet et al.
People who frequently recall their dreams show different brain reactivity compared to those who rarely recall dreams, both while awake and asleep. In a study of 18 high-recall and 18 low-recall participants, brain responses to hearing first names (ignored during a silent movie or sleep) were measured. During wakefulness, high-recall individuals had larger attention-orienting brain responses (P3a) and a late parietal response. During sleep, differences appeared at the P3a latency during N2 sleep and at later latencies across all sleep stages. These findings indicate that dream recall ability is linked to a particular functional organization of the brain that persists regardless of whether the person is awake or asleep.
Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
August 1, 2009
Qian Luo, Derek Mitchell, Xi Cheng et al.
Gamma-band synchronization in the brain is linked to conscious awareness but is not sufficient for it. Using brain-imaging, researchers observed increased gamma event-related synchronization (ERS) in prefrontal-anterior cingulate, visual, parietal, posterior cingulate, and superior temporal cortices when stimuli were consciously detected. However, gamma ERS also increased in the amygdala, visual, prefrontal, parietal, and posterior cingulate cortices for emotional versus neutral stimuli, regardless of whether participants were aware of them. This indicates that gamma-band activity is related to both conscious perception and emotional processing, but its presence does not guarantee consciousness.