Characterizing Consciousness: From Cognition to the Clinic?

Description

Characterizing the computational architecture and neurobiological mechanisms underlying consciousness is a major unsolved problem in cognitive neuroscience. Yet, thanks to new advances in stimulation paradigms, brain imaging techniques, and neuronal theorizing, the issue now appears to be empirically addressable. In this book thirteen renowned neuroscientists and clinicians examined the most recent data in the field including the possibility to study consciousness in non-human primates. New paradigms now ask whether animals possess meta-cognitive abilities, such as a self-monitoring of their competence in a task, and electrophysiologists now examine the underlying neuronal networks. Many of these results appear compatible with the theory of a global neuronal workspace, which proposes that a distributed set of neurons with long-distance axons are involved in the global information broadcasting underlying reportability and what is experienced as a conscious state. A major challenge still confronts these novel empirical and theoretical proposals: will they be able to help clinicians confronted with patients in coma or vegetative state? Is a given patient conscious? Will he ever recover consciousness? And what will be his cognitive state if he does? Brain stimulation paradigms, whether cortical or in deep-brain nuclei, can alter the state of consciousness and may improve communication in some 'minimally conscious' patients. Front Matter....Pages i-xii Missing Links in the Evolution of Language....Pages 1-25 Consciousness as a Decision to Engage....Pages 27-46 Thinking About Brain and Consciousness....Pages 47-54 The Global Neuronal Workspace Model of Conscious Access: From Neuronal Architectures to Clinical Applications....Pages 55-84 Disorders of Consciousness: What Do We Know?....Pages 85-98 When Thoughts Become Actions: Imaging Disorders of Consciousness....Pages 99-108 Rhythmic Neuronal Synchronization Subserves Selective Attentional Processing....Pages 109-132 Studying Consciousness Using Direct Recording from Single Neurons in the Human Brain....Pages 133-146 Intrinsic Activity and Consciousness....Pages 147-160 Beyond Libet: Long-Term Prediction of Free Choices from Neuroimaging Signals....Pages 161-174 Subliminal Motivation of the Human Brain....Pages 175-190 From Conscious Motor Intention to Movement Awareness....Pages 191-198 Back Matter....Pages 199-202