Report-modulated prefrontal activity and consistent posterior representations during conscious visual perception.
Consciousness and cognition June 1, 2026 Liang He, Zhige Zhang, Yuetan Wang et al.
The neural basis of conscious visual experience was investigated by combining magnetoencephalography with report and no-report masking paradigms. Early and sustained neural responses in occipital and temporal cortices began at about 60-70 milliseconds after a stimulus appeared, encoding stimulus presence and category regardless of whether participants reported what they saw. These posterior regions also showed enhanced alpha-band recurrent coupling for visible stimuli. Prefrontal cortex activity emerged only when explicit report was required, starting at about 100 milliseconds, and did not represent categorical content when reporting was absent. Long-range fronto-posterior connectivity increased selectively during report. The findings indicate that posterior cortical dynamics are sufficient to support perceptual awareness, while prefrontal cortex contributes to report-related access and global integration, supporting posterior-centered accounts of phenomenal consciousness.