Perceptual awareness negativity: a physiological correlate of sensory consciousness.

Much research on the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) has focused on two evoked potentials, the P3b and the visual or auditory awareness negativity (VAN, AAN). Surveying a broad range of recent experimental evidence, we find that repeated failures to observe the P3b during conscious perception eliminate it as a putative NCC. Neither the VAN nor the AAN have been dissociated from consciousness; furthermore, a similar neural signal correlates with tactile consciousness.

Big Science, Team Science, and Open Science for Neuroscience.

The Allen Institute for Brain Science is a non-profit private institution dedicated to basic brain science with an internal organization more commonly found in large physics projects-large teams generating complete, accurate and permanent resources for the mouse and human brain. It can also be viewed as an experiment in the sociology of neuroscience. We here describe some of the singular differences to more academic, PI-focused institutions.

A Biological Imitation Game.

The digital reconstruction of a slice of rat somatosensory cortex from the Blue Brain Project provides the most complete simulation of a piece of excitable brain matter to date. To place these efforts in context and highlight their strengths and limitations, we introduce a Biological Imitation Game, based on Alan Turing's Imitation Game, that operationalizes the difference between real and simulated brains.

Information integration without awareness.

Information integration and consciousness are closely related, if not interdependent. But, what exactly is the nature of their relation? Which forms of integration require consciousness? Here, we examine the recent experimental literature with respect to perceptual and cognitive integration of spatiotemporal, multisensory, semantic, and novel information. We suggest that, whereas some integrative processes can occur without awareness, their scope is limited to smaller integration windows, to simpler associations, or to ones that were previously acquired consciously.