综述: 人脑视觉意识的神经机制

意识的存在决定了人类生命的意义.意识问题被认为是21世纪科学要回答的一个最重要问题.意识科学正在成为认知和心理科学的皇冠,成为基础科学的顶峰.近20年来,随着认知科学、心理科学、神经科学和脑成像技术的发展,人们开始通过实验科学地研究意识问题,特别是与视觉意识相关的研究工作取得了很多重要进展.在这篇综述中,我们对以往的视觉意识研究工作进行了总结,并对未来的研究方向进行了展望.

Review: Neural Mechanism of Visual Awareness in The Human Brain

Understanding the mechanisms of consciousness is a major and challenging question in neuroscience. Studies of the neural correlates of visual awareness have benefited from using bistable phenomena such as binocular rivalry, in which conscious perception fluctuates with constant visual inputs. Non-invasive neuroimaging techniques, especially functional MRI, made it possible to directly investigate the neural correlate of consciousness in the human brain. The focus of this review is on studies related to the unconscious visual information processing in the parallel visual pathways as well as in the subcortical visual structures. Future research to explore the neural mechanisms of consciousness will need to be highly interdisciplinary and integrative, over a broad range of spatiotemporal scales and across different species.