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An Update
a Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, USA b Division of Biology and the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
Key Words: consciousness • brain • information
Address for correspondence: Christof Koch, Division of Biology and the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, 216-76, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125. Fax: +1-626-796-8876. koch{at}klab.caltech.edu
This review examines recent advances in the study of brain correlates of consciousness. First, we briefly discuss some useful distinctions between consciousness and other brain functions. We then examine what has been learned by studying global changes in the level of consciousness, such as sleep, anesthesia, and seizures. Next we consider some of the most common paradigms used to study the neural correlates for specific conscious percepts and examine what recent findings say about the role of different brain regions in giving rise to consciousness for that percept. Then we discuss dynamic aspects of neural activity, such as sustained versus phasic activity, feedforward versus reentrant activity, and the role of neural synchronization. Finally, we briefly consider how a theoretical analysis of the fundamental properties of consciousness can usefully complement neurobiological studies.
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