PLoS ONE
February 10, 2023
Lucia Melloni, Liad Mudrik, Michael Pitts et al.
106 citations
An adversarial collaboration between proponents of Global Neuronal Workspace and Integrated Information Theory devised and preregistered two experiments that test contrasting predictions about the location and timing of correlates of visual consciousness. Six theory-impartial laboratories will follow the study protocol using fMRI, M-EEG, and intracranial EEG, with built-in replications between labs and within datasets. The project aims to provide decisive evidence for or against the two theories and clarify the neural footprints of conscious visual perception, while modeling large-scale, collaborative, and open science practice.
Nature
June 1, 2025
Oscar Ferrante, Urszula Gorska-Klimowska, Simon Henin et al.
94 citations
Different theories explain how subjective experience arises from brain activity. An open science adversarial collaboration directly juxtaposed integrated information theory (IIT) and global neuronal workspace theory (GNWT). Human participants (n = 256) viewed suprathreshold stimuli for variable durations while neural activity was measured with fMRI, MEG, and intracranial EEG. Information about conscious content was found in visual, ventrotemporal, and inferior frontal cortex, with sustained responses in occipital and lateral temporal cortex reflecting stimulus duration, and content-specific synchronization between frontal and early visual areas. These results align with some predictions of IIT and GNWT but substantially challenge key tenets of both theories, including a lack of sustained posterior cortex synchronization for IIT and a lack of ignition at stimulus offset and limited prefrontal representation for GNWT.
NeuroImage
May 15, 2025
Aya Khalaf, Erick Lopez, Jian Li et al.
6 citations
Subcortical arousal systems help control sustained changes in attention and conscious awareness, and recent studies suggest they also influence short-term dynamic modulation of visual attention, but their role across sensory modalities is unclear. Analyzing fMRI data from 1561 participants performing visual, auditory, tactile, and taste perception tasks, a shared circuit of subcortical arousal systems was identified. This circuit shows early transient increases in activity in the midbrain reticular formation and central thalamus across all sensory modalities, with less consistent increases in the pons, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, and basal ganglia. Identifying these networks is critical for understanding normal attention and consciousness and may aid subcortical targeting for therapeutic neuromodulation.
PNAS nexus
July 1, 2026
David S Jin, Oumayma Agdali, Taruna Yadav et al.
Awareness of action (AoA)—the conscious awareness of one's own actions—is crucial for daily life, yet its neural basis is poorly understood. By developing a game where participants repeatedly made nearly identical moves while distracted, then reported awareness or unawareness of those moves, the authors compared neural activity between aware and unaware actions. On short timescales, aware actions showed larger neurophysiological signals both before and after movement, including volitional and perceptual event-related potentials, frontal midline theta, alpha/beta desynchronization, and increased blink rates. On longer timescales, a novel positive event-related potential preceded only unaware moves, and behavioral and pupillometric evidence indicated decreased attention and arousal concurrent with AoA loss. Three synergistic neural mechanisms were identified: long-term increases in arousal/attentional state, increased motor volitional signals, and increased sensory perceptual signals.
Scientific data
May 7, 2026
Aya Khalaf, David Richter, Yamil Vidal et al.
An adversarial collaboration between proponents of the Global Neuronal Workspace theory and the Integrated Information Theory of consciousness produced a functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset from 118 participants. Participants viewed faces, objects, letters, and false fonts presented at three orientations and three durations (0.5, 1.0, 1.5 seconds) while identifying infrequent targets. Two categories were task-relevant and two were task-irrelevant in each block. The simple design makes the data broadly reusable for testing predictions from other theories of consciousness and for examining visual processing. Anonymized data, quality reports, demographics, behavioral performance, and eye-tracking data are publicly accessible.
bioRxiv Preprint Server
June 23, 2023
Oscar Ferrante, Urszula Gorska-Klimowska, Simon Henin et al.
preprint
An open science adversarial collaboration directly juxtaposed Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT) by investigating neural correlates of visual experience. 256 human subjects viewed suprathreshold stimuli for variable durations while neural activity was measured with fMRI, MEG, and ECoG. Information about conscious content was found in visual, ventro-temporal, and inferior frontal cortex, with sustained responses in occipital and lateral temporal cortex reflecting stimulus duration, and content-specific synchronization between frontal and early visual areas.