PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Jaakko W. Långsjö
AU  - Michael T. Alkire
AU  - Kimmo Kaskinoro
AU  - Hiroki Hayama
AU  - Anu Maksimow
AU  - Kaike K. Kaisti
AU  - Sargo Aalto
AU  - Riku Aantaa
AU  - Satu K. Jääskeläinen
AU  - Antti Revonsuo
AU  - Harry Scheinin
TI  - Returning from Oblivion: Imaging the Neural Core of Consciousness
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4962-11.2012
DP  - 2012 Apr 04
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 4935--4943
VI  - 32
IP  - 14
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/14/4935.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/32/14/4935.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.2012 Apr 04; 32
AB  - One of the greatest challenges of modern neuroscience is to discover the neural mechanisms of consciousness and to explain how they produce the conscious state. We sought the underlying neural substrate of human consciousness by manipulating the level of consciousness in volunteers with anesthetic agents and visualizing the resultant changes in brain activity using regional cerebral blood flow imaging with positron emission tomography. Study design and methodology were chosen to dissociate the state-related changes in consciousness from the effects of the anesthetic drugs. We found the emergence of consciousness, as assessed with a motor response to a spoken command, to be associated with the activation of a core network involving subcortical and limbic regions that become functionally coupled with parts of frontal and inferior parietal cortices upon awakening from unconsciousness. The neural core of consciousness thus involves forebrain arousal acting to link motor intentions originating in posterior sensory integration regions with motor action control arising in more anterior brain regions. These findings reveal the clearest picture yet of the minimal neural correlates required for a conscious state to emerge.