RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Evidence for an Active Role of Inferior Frontal Cortex in Conscious Experience
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.05.28.114645
DO 10.1101/2020.05.28.114645
A1 Veith Weilnhammer
A1 Merve Fritsch
A1 Meera Chikermane
A1 Anna-Lena Eckert
A1 Katharina Kanthak
A1 Heiner Stuke
A1 Jakob Kaminski
A1 Philipp Sterzer
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/05/2020.05.28.114645.abstract
AB In the search for the neural correlates of consciousness, it has remained controversial whether prefrontal cortex determines what is consciously experienced or, alternatively, serves only complementary functions such as introspection or action.Here, we provide converging evidence from computational modeling and two functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments for a key role of inferior frontal cortex in detecting perceptual conflicts that emerge from ambiguous sensory information. Crucially, the detection of perceptual conflicts by prefrontal cortex turned out to be critical in the process of transforming ambiguous sensory information into unambiguous conscious experiences: In a third experiment, disruption of neural activity in inferior frontal cortex through transcranial magnetic stimulation slowed down the updating of conscious experience that occurs in response to perceptual conflicts.These findings show that inferior frontal cortex actively contributes to the resolution of perceptual ambiguities. Prefrontal cortex is thus causally involved in determining the contents of conscious experience.One-sentence Summary Inferior frontal cortex detects and resolves perceptual conflict during bistable perception.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.