Magnetoencephalography (MEG), Attention and Conscience

Institut National de la Santé Et de la Recherche Médicale, France

Status: Completed

Conditions: Reaction Time; Change in Sustained Attention; Awareness

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01592175

C11-49

2011-A01554-37 (Registry Identifier)

Details and patient eligibility

About

The tight relationship between attention and conscious perception makes them difficult to study in isolation and has led many scientists to closely link these two processes. However, while some authors argue that conscious perception cannot occurs without attention, magnetoencephalography (MEG) and fMRI studies had shown that attention and consciousness are two distinct brain processes.

If endogenously triggered attention and consciousness are dissociated, it has been proposed that orienting of exogenous attention is a necessary, though not sufficient, antecedent of conscious perception.

In the present study we used MEG to explore the neural correlates of exogenous attention and consciousness during visual processing.

Enrollment: 32 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 40 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Subjects aged between 18 and 40 who have signed informed consent for participation to the study and are affiliated to a social security regimen
• right-handler, without auditory or visual deficit

Exclusion criteria

• history of neurological or psychiatic disease
• medication
• sensory disorders