A patient blind in part of the visual field due to damage to the visual cortex reports conscious vision for moving, but not stationary, stimuli in the blind area. This completion effect is perceptual, not conceptual, and likely relies on spared representations in the striate cortex. fMRI shows brain activation only for moving stimuli, but on the same side of the brain as the stimulus rather than the opposite side, indicating a shift to the wrong hemisphere. This shift, explained by an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory interactions between the striate cortices after injury, reveals neuroplasticity and offers new insights into visual system function and consciousness.
Astrocytes undergo extensive molecular reprogramming during transitions of consciousness. Proteomic and phosphoproteomic analyses of rat cortical astrocytes across wake, sleep, and sevoflurane-induced general anesthesia revealed state-specific molecular signatures. Sleep and anesthesia shared similar changes such as downregulated structural proteins and upregulated membrane transport complexes, but diverged in molecular expression. Anesthesia specifically suggested potential activation of cellular differentiation and structural plasticity pathways, while implying disruption of metabolism and molecular clearance compared to sleep. Phosphoproteomics identified downregulated phosphorylation of NUCKS1 at Ser188 during anesthesia, suggesting suppressed nuclear transcription or cell cycle activity as a potential molecular signature of the anesthetic state. Sleep was associated with upregulated mRNA processing, while anesthesia indicated potential enhancement of synaptic signaling and suppression of development-related programs.