Frontiers in Psychology
2011
Hans C Lou, Morten Joensson, Morten L. Kringelbach
18 citations
Consciousness has been proposed to play a key role in shaping flexible learning and as such is thought to confer an evolutionary advantage. Attention and awareness are the perhaps most important underlying processes, yet their precise relationship is presently unclear. Both of these processes must, however, serve the evolutionary imperatives of survival and procreation. They are thus intimately...
Frontiers in Psychology
2011
Micah Allen, G. Williams
35 citations
Consciousness is typically construed as being explainable purely in terms of either private, raw feels or higher-order, reflective representations. In contrast to this false dichotomy, we propose a new view of consciousness as an interactive, plastic phenomenon open to sociocultural influence. We take up our account of consciousness from the observation of radical cortical neuroplasticity in...
Advances in Consciousness Research
October 28, 2010
Kai Vogeley
Experiencing oneself as autonomous agent who interacts with others depends on the cognitive capacities of self-consciousness as awareness of ones own mental states and social consciousness as knowledge of other persons minds. The study of neural correlates of these capacities elicits an impressive overlap with the so-called “default mode of brain function” as a neurobiological universal of...
Neuroimage
August 15, 2010
Gloria M P Roberts, Hugh P Garavan
Evidence suggests that users of ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) have behavioural and cognitive deficits and show increased impulsivity. Impulse control impairments have been shown to be common to a number of addictive behaviours and may constitute a risk factor for drug abuse and dependence. The aim of this study was to investigate brain activation during response inhibition and...
Cognitive Processing
February 1, 2010
Fred Travis, David A F Haaga, John Hagelin et al.
Activation of a default mode network (DMN) including frontal and parietal midline structures varies with cognitive load, being more active during low-load tasks and less active during high-load tasks requiring executive control. Meditation practices entail various degrees of cognitive control. Thus, DMN activation patterns could give insight into the nature of meditation practices. This 10-week...
Neural Networks
August 20, 2009
Minimal neuroanatomy for a conscious brain: homing in on the networks constituting consciousness.
Journal of Neuroscience
October 1, 2008
Martijn Van den Heuvel, René Mandl, Judith Luigjes et al.
The default mode network is a functionally connected network of brain regions that show highly synchronized intrinsic neuronal activation during rest. However, less is known about the structural connections of this network, which could play an important role in the observed functional connectivity patterns. In this study, we examined the microstructural organization of the cingulum tract in...
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
July 15, 2008
Ben J. Harrison, Jesus Pujol, Marina López-solà et al.
The notion of a “default mode of brain function” has taken on certain relevance in human neuroimaging studies and in relation to a network of lateral parietal and midline cortical regions that show prominent activity fluctuations during passive imaging states, such as rest. In this study, we perform three fMRI experiments that demonstrate consistency and specialization in the default mode...
July 10, 2008
Xiaolan Song, Xiaowei Tang
Abstract Global Workspace theory and Global Neuronal Workspace hypothesis are frameworks about the mechanism of the consciousness, which argued that it is the global workspace that makes awareness. These two theories ignored an important fact that the content of consciousness is not only from the instant sensory input, but also from the inward mind representation. The existence of the default...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
May 1, 2008
Melanie Boly, Christophe Phillips, Luaba Tshibanda et al.
396 citations
Spontaneous brain activity has recently received increasing interest in the neuroimaging community. However, the value of resting-state studies to a better understanding of brain-behavior relationships has been challenged. That altered states of consciousness are a privileged way to study the relationships between spontaneous brain activity and behavior is proposed, and common resting-state...