Chapter 14

Cortical Signals of Consciousness

Paulo J. Negro

Abstract

Late extracellular signals underscore some of the neural signatures of consciousness, which seem to depend on long-range feedback processing. The Visual Awareness Negativity and P300, which denote a variation in awareness, correlate with consciousness and originate from late signals. Mid- and long-distance information sharing provides long-range cortical communication, and also represents a neural correlate of consciousness in humans. In granular sensory cortices, superficial and deep pyramidal cells respectively process feedforward and feedback information, apparently as parallel streams. There is evidence identifying Layer-5 neurons as the main cortical column integrators of information. Layer-5 pyramidal neurons might function as coincidence detectors by signaling feedforward and feedback interactions with a high-frequency spike burst triggered by calcium influx. These spike bursts may give origin to the late extracellular signals observed at superficial cortical layers. The high-bursting model of coincidence detection fits the concept of realization of information: ‘expectation.information’expectation.information can be re-expressed as ‘feedback.feedforward’feedback.feedforward.

Total Pages: 89-93 (5)

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