1
Q
What are the two main components of consciousness ?
A
- Awareness (command following)
- Arousal (eyes opening)
2
Q
What does consciousness mean in medical sense ?
A
- shows evidence of purposeful behavior in response to the environment
- not an all or nothing state
1. Consciousness content
2. Consciousness level
3
Q
What is meant by consciousness content ?
A
- The subjective state
- It is on scale with 3 stages
- alll about recognition
- qualitative aspect of awareness
4
Q
What are the 3 stages of consciousness content ?
A
- nothing noticed – normal perception – hallucinations
5
Q
What are some impairments regarding qualitative consciousness (awareness/content) ?
A
- Clouded awareness”
- Narrowing of one’s awareness (very specific awareness) -> phobia
- Awareness shif
6
Q
What is meant by consciousness level ?
A
- quantitative aspect of arousal
- objective state
- it is on a scale with 3 stages
7
Q
What are the 3 stages of consciousness level ?
A
- awake
- unarousable
- dead
8
Q
What are some impairments regarding quantittive consciousness (arousal/lvl) ?
A
- Drowsiness – normal sleepiness –
- Somnolence – abnormal sleepiness, but acoustically arousable
- Sopor – abnormal sleepiness but not acoustically arousable, but reaction to pain stimuli possible
- Coma – no reaction to visual, acoustic or pain stimuli
9
Q
Explain the process on how we become unconscious:
A
- Head trauma
- Destroyed brain tissue
- Swellling of tissue (maybe bleeding)
- reduced space within skull
- high pressure on brain structures
- Dysfunctional arousal systems
10
Q
Name the causes for a head trauma:
A
- High intracranial pressure or direct affection to brain structures
- Psychogenic/Psychiatric
- Neurological conditions
- Medical interventions
- Physiological
11
Q
Which brain structures are involved in consciousness ?
A
- Reticular formation (RAS)
- Thalamus (gate)
- Cerebral cortex (Frontal and parietal lobe)
- Ascending and descending pathways
12
Q
Which particular part of the cerebral cortex is important ?
A
- Corpus callosum for interacting
2. Fusiform face are (general specialized areas
13
Q
Which particular pathways are of importants ?
A
- For arousal: cholinergic and (nor-)adrenergic pathways
- For awareness: dopaminergic and serotonergic pathways
14
Q
How do we determine if someone is unconscious ?
A
- Needs several clinical signs (those are questions)
- Always two clinicans
- check medical history
- check reactions made from responses to external stimuli
- Also check neurological parts
- Also they make use of certain scales to evaluate
15
Q
Which scales are usually used to meassure consciousness ?
A
- MMS
- GCS
16
Q
What does the GCS in particular meassure ?
A
- Qualitive consciousness
1. Eye opening
2. verbal responses
3. best motor response - underneath or 6 points coma
17
Q
What is meant by the locked syndrome ?
A
- consciousness / emotion is there but almost no controlled body movement
- Arousal andconsicouness is high
- no communication
- usually caused by stroke in ventral pons
18
Q
What are the 3 lvls of the locked in syndrome ?
A
- incomplete LIS -> small extent of movement
- Classical LIS -> only eye movement possible
- Complete LIS -> nothing can be moved voluntairly
19
Q
What is meant by the vegetative state ?
A
- No body movement and no conscious
- Also called Uresponsive wakefulness syndrome
- pain is still possible
- Abnormal sleep cyles
- 2 types of vegetative state
- Arousal is high but no awareness
20
Q
What are the two types of the vegetative state ?
A
- Minimally conscious state
2. Permanent vegetative state (>3 months)
21
Q
What is meant by minimally conscious state
A
- Generally unresponsive patients
- Sometimes cognitively mediated behavior
- Arousal high and awareness a bit active
22
Q
What is the definiton of a coma ?
A
- Absence of arousal and awareness
- Unresponsiveness for at least 1 hour
23
Q
What is meant by brain death ?
A
- Final breakdown of all brain functions
24
Q
Which method can be used to determine brain death ?
A
- EEG - > shows a flat line
- Be aware that deep anesthesia or cardiac arrest also flat EGG
25
Which methods can be maybe used in the future to detect if someone is consicious or unconscious ?
- EEG
- FMRI
- PET
26
How does the fmri in particular determine consicousness ?
1. Mental task will be performed
| 2. Focus on activity in SMA also on three P !!
27
How does the PET in particular determine consicousness ?
1. High activation Trinagle on parietal lobe
| 2. Using a painful leaser
28
Can neuroimaging studies help to identify consciousness ?
- They can give certain insight on what kind of mechanism are involved in consciousness but we are not sure if the relationship between the mechanism and consciousness determines anything .
- neuroimaging will not exchange in near future the clinical perspective/judgemnt
29
How much money to we pay to keep people alive in a vegetative state ?
- 1 to 7 billion
30
How do we save iformation / process info ?
1. Retina
2. Primary visual cortex
3. to specialized neurons modules
4. Visaul association area
5. many parts in th cortex connected to feelings are connected to consciousness (not a single brain area)
31
How many misdiagnosis do we have in consciousness disorder ?
- 40%
32
How is consciousnes generally being studied ?
- Relating third person data to first person data
33
What is the issue with how consciousness is generally being studied ?
- The issue is that third person data can never explain first person data
34
What is meant by first person data?
- Subjective experiences
35
What is meant by third person data ?
- brain processes, behavior, environmental interaction
36
How are first person and third person data related to each other ?
- they have certain connection/correlation which cannot be seen right away
37
What is meant by the fundament theory of consciousness ?
- formulate simple and universal laws that underlie connecting principles between first and third person data
38
What do u need to create valuable first person and third person data ?
- You need good methodologies and formalies (good language for expressing data)
39
What are the methodologies and formalies of third person data ?
- M = EEG Brain imigaing and single cell studie)
- F= easy language, neurophysiological classification, various sorts of images and diagrams, computational models
- Both are really good
40
What are the methodologies and formalies of first person data ?
- M = untutored introspection and verbal report
- F = = Maybe simple language/ or for emotions = questionnaires
- Both very vague and imprecise
41
Why are the methodologies in first person so bad ?
- the lack of access to our experience;
- the idea that introspecting an experience changes the experience;
- illusions
42
What can we develop to gain a better formalism regarding first person persepctive ?
- -develop formalisms for capturing the structure of experience
43
What is meant by NNC ?
- neural correlate of consciousness -> neural system or systems primarily associated with conscious experience.
44
What is the most famous suggestion of where we can find the NCC ?
- Crick and Koch’s (suggestion concerning 40-hertz oscillation)
45
What do all the NCC theoris had as an allocation in comman ?
- The thalamus and the cortex
46
How does champler determin Where the NNC is located at ?
- With the principle of interpretation or pre experimental bridging principle
47
What is the main function of the principle of interpretation and what are they build of ?
- They create a inferences from facts about processing to facts about consciousness,
- based on faith/only theoretical inferences/ partly based on our own subjective perspective of consciousness
48
What is the problem of the principle of interpretation ?
- That many reseachers allready make use of it but only implicity
- Needs to become explicity
49
What are the two major principles of interpretation ?
- The princel of verbal report (very save)
- the principle of reportability
- > When information is directly available for global control in a cognitive system, then it is conscious (less save)
50
Who identfied the second principle of interpretation ?
- Nikos Logothetis
| - monkey pressing a botton in response to a stimuli
51
What is the definition of global availability ?
- There Is an existence of first person data which can not be expressed
52
What is the main syllogism champler came up with ?
1. Consciousness Global availability (Theoretical premise)
2. Global availability neural process N (emperical premise)
3. Consciousness neural process N (conclusion)
53
What is the first concluion of the rational construction according to champler ?
- You are searching for a assocation between the principle of interpretation and consciousness to identify the NCC
- But it could be that consciousness is not a mechanism but rather a symptom since we do not know in which direction it is correlated
54
What is the second concluion of the rational construction according to champler ?
- Be aware of the fact the just because we have a association it does not mean that this association is an explanation
55
What is the third concluion of the rational construction according to champler ?
- There will be many association/correlation between the principle of interpretation (global availability) and consciousness since there are many mechanism of global availability linked to differnt body parts
- The associations/correlations could be either all identical or different
56
What is the fourth concluion of the rational construction according to champler ?
- It can be that the is a special area linked th consciousness which is also called a module
- all areas of consciousness have to be connected to the module (thalamus)
57
What is the fifth concluion of the rational construction according to champler ?
- Consciousness needs control which is why it needs to be linked to the Prefrontal cortex and can not be in the V1 since there is no direct link between Prefrontal cortex and V1
58
What is the sixed concluion of the rational construction according to champler ?
- Be aware of the fact that identifying a consciousness meter is impossible since it is all based on the pre experimental principles
- It is just a theoretical tool
59
Ask ELENA
- Card from 52- 67 Focus o n the conclusion
60
What did recent functional imaging technique identify ?
- certain ilands of observed brain function in patients who are in a vegetative state
61
What was owens conclusion regarding the "ilands" detected by fmri scans ?
- fmri can identify consciousness awareness in patients who are in a vegetativ state
62
How did owen identify consciousness in the people who are in a vegetative state ?
- fmri scan in response to spokken sentences (identicall activation pattern as in healthy humans)
- Even more evidence gave the use of ambigious words !
63
What were certain limitations on the speech comprehension task designed by owen ?
- neural response towards spoken language has been prioraly proved to be a concept of unconscioussness,
- Proven by studies of implicit learning and sleep
64
How did owen react to the limitations of "spoken sentences proving consciousness under and frmi scan " ?
- He conducted a second study
- spokken instructions to
1. Virtualy play a tennis match
2. Virtually walking around the house
65
What were the results of owens second study ?
- Imaginie playing tennis showed activation in the supplementary motor area
- imagining walking around the house =parietal cortex, and the lateral
premotor cortex
- neural responses
were indistinguishable from those observed in
healthy volunteers
66
What leaded to further limitation on the study by owen regarding the patient ?
- The 23 year old patient did not have a strong brain damage (few cerebral
lesions) in comparison to other vegetative state patients
- not generalizable
67
What was also a limitation to owens study according to the is she conscious article ?
- If the patient as described by owen why could she not move because she showed no lesion on the motor pathways
68
What was also a limitation to owens study according to the is she conscious article ? (testing)
- owen did not collect a subjective report
- neither did he test for: strategical processing and spontaneous intentional
behavior
- He only tested active maintenance
of mental representations
69
What ethical dilema is mentioned in the article is "the light is on" ?
- There is an ethical dilmea telling a family member that there is a likly hood that the patient has self awareness and is conscious but this does not mean that there is a better chance of rehabilitiation
- To go trough the dilema we should be a 100% certain that Fmri actually show consciousness
70
According to the arictle "the lights on" what is the main clonclusion?
- you can only see under an fmri scan precursers of perception and not the transition from consciouss to unconsciouss
- this is because consciouss is not generated by a specific brain area
- They believe that our brain works all the time but unconsciously but it needs also to transfer uconsciouss to consciouss awareness which was damged in the patient of owen
71
What did the milshake study done by the chinesse pointed out ?
- demonstrate how extensive areas of brain specific for language
processing can be activated in unconscious patients.
- how much cognition actually
occurs at a purely unconscious level.
72
What is meant by the metahpor " The light is on but is anybody home" ?
- Fmri can tell you which rooms are lighted, even the amount of electricity being used
in any room, but it cannot tell you what is going on in a lighted room, or even if anyone
is home and is aware of the light.
73
What did the study Willful Modulation of Brain Activity in Disorders of Consciousness revealed ?
- tested owens hypothesis and identified 5 people out of 54 where able to willfully modulate brain activity !
- awareness is present but did not directly linked ot to consciousness
- > Maybe re read the article again !!!!!
Consciousness
flashcards
Decks in class (11)
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