General anesthesia provides an invaluable experimental tool to probe the essential neural circuits that underlie consciousness. A new study reports that cholinergic stimulation of the prefrontal cortex restores wake-like behaviors in anesthetized rodents, suggesting that cholinergic inputs to the prefrontal cortex play a fundamental role in modulating consciousness. Read Full Article (External Site) Dr. David […]

The relationship between integration and conscious awareness (CA) is pivotal to current debates on the nature and limitations of conscious and nonconscious processes [1]. Whereas influential theories posit that integration and awareness are inextricable, recent years have yielded evidence for integration without CA. Specifically, using continuous flash suppression (CFS), which allows prolonged exposure of stimuli […]