Two Distinct Neuronal Networks Mediate the Awareness of Environment and of Self

By Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, A. Demertzi, Manuel Schabus, Quentin Noirhomme, S. Brédart, Melanie Boly, Christophe L. M. Phillips, A. Soddu, André Luxen, Gustave Moonen and 1 more. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2011

441 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Evidence from functional neuroimaging studies on resting state suggests that there are two distinct anticorrelated cortical systems that mediate conscious awareness: an “extrinsic” system that encompasses lateral fronto-parietal areas and has been linked with processes of external input (external awareness), and an “intrinsic” system which encompasses mainly medial brain areas and has been associated with internal processes (internal awareness). The aim of our study was to explore the neural correlates of resting state by providing behavioral and neuroimaging data from healthy volunteers. With no a priori assumptions, we first determined behaviorally the relationship between external and internal awareness in 31 subjects. We found a significant anticorrelation between external and internal awareness with a mean switching frequency of 0.05 Hz (range: 0.01–0.1 Hz). Interestingly, this frequency is similar to BOLD fMRI slow oscillations. We then evaluated 22 healthy volunteers in an fMRI paradigm looking for brain areas where BOLD activity correlated with “internal” and “external” scores. Activation of precuneus/posterior cingulate, anterior cingulate/mesiofrontal cortices, and parahippocampal areas (“intrinsic system”) was linearly linked to intensity of internal awareness, whereas activation of lateral fronto-parietal cortices (“extrinsic system”) was linearly associated with intensity of external awareness.

Subfields: Accounting

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Citations in the corpus

Patterns of hemodynamic low-frequency oscillations in the brain are modulated by the nature of free thought during rest (2012, background): “These areas, which are part of the extrinsic system, have been described as being engaged in goal-directed processing (Golland et al., 2008; Vanhaudenhuyse et al., 2010).”
From unresponsive wakefulness to minimally conscious PLUS and functional locked-in syndromes: recent advances in our understanding of disorders of consciousness (2011, background): “Awareness, in turn, can be divided into awareness of the external world (i.e., sensory or perceptual awareness of the environment) and awareness of the internal world (i.e., stimulus-independent thoughts, mental imagery, inner speech, daydreaming or mind wandering) [ 34 ].”
Emotion and the Prefrontal Cortex: An Integrative Review (2017, result): “The idea that there are separate neural mechanisms for evaluating the relevance of external versus internal events is consistent with a large literature highlighting a division between internal and external streams of information processing (Chun, Golomb, & TurkBrowne, 2011; Dixon et al., 2014b; Fox”
The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs (2014, background): “DMN resting-state functional connectivity correlates positively with ratings of internal awareness (Vanhaudenhuyse et al., 2011), depressive rumination (Berman et al., 2011) and trait neuroticism (Adelstein et al., 2011).”
Understanding the Processes that Regulate Positive Emotional Experience: Unsolved Problems and Future Directions for Theory and Research on Savoring (2011, background): “Recent fMRI experiments reveal that being ‚strongly externally aware‛ correlates with activation of lateral fronto-parietal areas, whereas being ‚strongly internally aware‛ correlates with activation of medial brain areas (Vanhaudenhuyse et al., 2011).”