Intrinsic fluctuations modulate thalamic gating during the emergence of human conscious perception

Early (0–200 ms) activity in high-order thalamus appears before evoked consciousness-related responses and is linked to reaching conscious perception, with an inverse association to stimulus strength.

• Why it matters: Conscious perception depends on intrinsic brain-state fluctuations, but it is unclear how those states after stimulus onset modulate thalamic gating during emergence of awareness.
• What they did: In 32 patients (n=2,023 recording sites), sEEG was recorded in thalamus and five consciousness-related cortical regions during near-threshold visual stimulation, comparing early thalamic activity across conscious trials.
• The result: High-order thalamic early activity was closer to a critical state in conscious trials and is linked to compensating stimulus-evoked responses to reach the conscious threshold.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.