Objective How do external events become part of our subjective reality? Correlative evidence suggests that the locus coeruleus-noradrenaline (LC-NE) system might play a key role in this process: LC-NE activity is markedly reduced in sleep and anesthesia and reinstated upon recovery of conscious perception, while during wakefulness it correlates with markers of conscious perception. However causal evidence, as well as sensitive experimental paradigms that carefully manipulate awareness in this context, are absent. This proposal aims at providing this missing causal link by pharmacologically manipulating NE levels bi-directionally in healthy volunteers performing liminal visual and auditory perceptual tasks, while reporting their subjective perceptual state. Neural signals will be recorded using simultaneous EEG-fMRI allowing high spatio-temporal resolution. If indeed NE plays a causal role in enabling conscious perception then reduced NE activity will increase perceptual threshold and give rise to impoverished neural responses, whereas enhanced NE activity will aid perceptual incorporation and effectively drive neuronal activity in high-order cortical regions. In a complementary set of experiments I will use a rare opportunity to record single-neuron and LFP activity from neurosurgical patients performing the same perceptual tasks while using pupillometry as a proxy for momentary NE levels. The exceptional signal-to-noise ratio of these recordings will allow linking precisely localized neuronal activity, momentary NE levels, and perception on a trial-by-trial basis, thereby refining and extending the EEG-fMRI results. The ability to manipulate and measure NE levels in subjects reporting their subjective state in sensitive perceptual paradigms, together with comprehensively examining neuronal activity from the level of individual neurons to the whole brain, promise to yield unique results that will shed new light on the neurobiological underpinnings of conscious perception. Fields of science medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologyepilepsysocial sciencessociologysocial issuessocial inequalitiessocial sciencessociologyanthropologyscience and technology studies Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Main Programme H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility Topic(s) MSCA-IF-2014-EF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF-EF) Call for proposal H2020-MSCA-IF-2014 See other projects for this call Funding Scheme MSCA-IF-EF-RI - RI – Reintegration panel Coordinator TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY Net EU contribution € 182 509,20 Address RAMAT AVIV 69978 Tel Aviv Israel See on map Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 182 509,20
