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Research Article

A common neural code for similar conscious experiences in different individuals

Lorina Naci, Rhodri Cusack, Mimma Anello, and Adrian M. Owen
PNAS first published September 15, 2014 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1407007111
Lorina Naci
aThe Brain and Mind Institute, Department of Psychology, and
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  • For correspondence: lorina.clare@gmail.com
Rhodri Cusack
aThe Brain and Mind Institute, Department of Psychology, and
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Mimma Anello
bSchulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada N6A 5B7
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Adrian M. Owen
aThe Brain and Mind Institute, Department of Psychology, and
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  1. Edited by Marcus E. Raichle, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, and approved August 15, 2014 (received for review April 16, 2014)

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Significance

Although in our daily lives we engage in many of the same activities as others, we are not privy to their conscious experiences, and can only understand them through their self-reports. Patients who are conscious, but are unable to speak or exhibit willful behavior, are, therefore, unable to report their conscious experiences to others. Indeed, in most cases, it is impossible to know whether they are conscious or not. We introduce a neural index that, in a group of healthy participants, predicted each individual’s conscious experience. Moreover, this approach provided strong evidence for intact conscious experiences in a brain-injured patient who had remained behaviorally nonresponsive for 16 y. These findings have implications for understanding the common basis of human consciousness.

Abstract

The interpretation of human consciousness from brain activity, without recourse to speech or action, is one of the most provoking and challenging frontiers of modern neuroscience. We asked whether there is a common neural code that underpins similar conscious experiences, which could be used to decode these experiences in the absence of behavior. To this end, we used richly evocative stimulation (an engaging movie) portraying real-world events to elicit a similar conscious experience in different people. Common neural correlates of conscious experience were quantified and related to measurable, quantitative and qualitative, executive components of the movie through two additional behavioral investigations. The movie’s executive demands drove synchronized brain activity across healthy participants’ frontal and parietal cortices in regions known to support executive function. Moreover, the timing of activity in these regions was predicted by participants’ highly similar qualitative experience of the movie’s moment-to-moment executive demands, suggesting that synchronization of activity across participants underpinned their similar experience. Thus we demonstrate, for the first time to our knowledge, that a neural index based on executive function reliably predicted every healthy individual’s similar conscious experience in response to real-world events unfolding over time. This approach provided strong evidence for the conscious experience of a brain-injured patient, who had remained entirely behaviorally nonresponsive for 16 y. The patient’s executive engagement and moment-to-moment perception of the movie content were highly similar to that of every healthy participant. These findings shed light on the common basis of human consciousness and enable the interpretation of conscious experience in the absence of behavior.

  • fMRI
  • brain injury
  • disorders of consciousness

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: lorina.clare{at}gmail.com.
  • Author contributions: L.N., R.C., and A.M.O. designed research; L.N. and M.A. performed research; R.C. contributed new reagents/analytic tools; L.N., R.C., and M.A. analyzed data; and L.N., R.C., and A.M.O. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1407007111/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

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Decoding conscious experience
Lorina Naci, Rhodri Cusack, Mimma Anello, Adrian M. Owen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 201407007; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1407007111

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Decoding conscious experience
Lorina Naci, Rhodri Cusack, Mimma Anello, Adrian M. Owen
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Sep 2014, 201407007; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1407007111
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