Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Evidence accumulation determines conscious access

View ORCID ProfileMichael Pereira, Pierre Megevand, Mi Xue Tan, Wenwen Chang, Shuo Wang, Ali Rezai, Margitta Seeck, Marco Corniola, Shahan Momjian, Fosco Bernasconi, Olaf Blanke, View ORCID ProfileNathan Faivre
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.10.196659
Michael Pereira
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland
2Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LPNC UMR 5105, Grenoble, France
3Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI), West Virginia University, Morgantown, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Michael Pereira
Pierre Megevand
4Neurology Division, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland
5Department of Fundamental Neuroscience, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
6Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Mi Xue Tan
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Wenwen Chang
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Shuo Wang
3Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI), West Virginia University, Morgantown, United States
7Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, West Virginia University, Morgantown, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ali Rezai
3Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute (RNI), West Virginia University, Morgantown, United States
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Margitta Seeck
4Neurology Division, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Marco Corniola
8Neurosurgery Division, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland
9Faculty of Medicine, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Shahan Momjian
8Neurosurgery Division, Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Geneva University Hospitals, Geneva, Switzerland
9Faculty of Medicine, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Fosco Bernasconi
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Olaf Blanke
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland
9Faculty of Medicine, University Hospital Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Nathan Faivre
1Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Brain Mind Institute, Faculty of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Geneva, Switzerland
2Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, LPNC UMR 5105, Grenoble, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Nathan Faivre
  • For correspondence: nathanfaivre@gmail.com
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Supplementary material
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

A fundamental scientific question concerns the neuronal basis of perceptual consciousness, which encompasses the perceptual experience and reflexive monitoring associated with a sensory event. Although recent human studies identified individual neurons reflecting stimulus visibility, their functional role for perceptual consciousness remains unknown. Here, we provide neuronal and computational evidence indicating that perceptual and reflexive consciousness are governed by an all-or-none process involving accumulation of perceptual evidence. We recorded single-neuron activity in a participant with a microelectrode implant in the posterior parietal cortex, considered a substrate for evidence accumulation, while he detected vibrotactile stimuli around detection threshold and provided confidence estimates. We found that detected stimuli elicited firing rate patterns resembling evidence accumulation during decision-making, irrespective of response effectors. Similar neurons encoded the intensity of task-irrelevant stimuli, suggesting their role for consciousness per se, irrespective of report. We generalized these findings in healthy volunteers using electroencephalography and reproduced their behavioral and neural responses with a computational model. This model considered stimulus detection if accumulated evidence reached a bound, and confidence as the distance between maximal evidence and that bound. Applying this mechanism to our neuronal data, we were able to decode single-trial confidence ratings both for detected and undetected stimuli. Our results show that the specific gradual changes in neuronal dynamics during evidence accumulation govern perceptual consciousness and reflexive monitoring in humans.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted July 11, 2020.
Download PDF

Supplementary Material

Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Evidence accumulation determines conscious access
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Evidence accumulation determines conscious access
Michael Pereira, Pierre Megevand, Mi Xue Tan, Wenwen Chang, Shuo Wang, Ali Rezai, Margitta Seeck, Marco Corniola, Shahan Momjian, Fosco Bernasconi, Olaf Blanke, Nathan Faivre
bioRxiv 2020.07.10.196659; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.10.196659
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Evidence accumulation determines conscious access
Michael Pereira, Pierre Megevand, Mi Xue Tan, Wenwen Chang, Shuo Wang, Ali Rezai, Margitta Seeck, Marco Corniola, Shahan Momjian, Fosco Bernasconi, Olaf Blanke, Nathan Faivre
bioRxiv 2020.07.10.196659; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.10.196659

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (3689)
  • Biochemistry (7789)
  • Bioengineering (5674)
  • Bioinformatics (21282)
  • Biophysics (10576)
  • Cancer Biology (8173)
  • Cell Biology (11937)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (6762)
  • Ecology (10401)
  • Epidemiology (2065)
  • Evolutionary Biology (13863)
  • Genetics (9708)
  • Genomics (13070)
  • Immunology (8139)
  • Microbiology (19983)
  • Molecular Biology (7842)
  • Neuroscience (43053)
  • Paleontology (319)
  • Pathology (1279)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2258)
  • Physiology (3351)
  • Plant Biology (7232)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1312)
  • Synthetic Biology (2004)
  • Systems Biology (5537)
  • Zoology (1128)