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Role of thalamus in human conscious perception revealed by low-intensity focused ultrasound neuromodulation

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Publicado en:Nature Communications vol. 16, no. 1 (2025), p. 11700-11716
Autor principal: Jang, Hyunwoo
Otros Autores: Fotiadis, Panagiotis, Mashour, George A., Hudetz, Anthony G., Huang, Zirui
Publicado:
Nature Publishing Group
Materias:
Visual tasks
Visual perception
Magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Sensitivity enhancement
Functional morphology
Modulation
Hypotheses
Signal detection
Pattern recognition
Ultrasound
Neuromodulation
Thalamus
Visual thresholds
Perception
Consciousness
Connectivity analysis
Object recognition
Ultrasonic imaging
Neural networks
Environmental
Acceso en línea:Citation/Abstract
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Resumen:The neural basis of consciousness remains incompletely understood. While cortical mechanisms of conscious perception have been extensively investigated in humans, the role of subcortical structures, including the thalamus, remains less explored. Here, we elucidate the causal contributions of different thalamic regions to conscious perception using transcranial low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) neuromodulation. We hypothesize that modulating distinct thalamic regions alters perceptual outcomes derived from Signal Detection Theory. We apply LIFU to healthy human anterior (transmodal-dominant) and posterior (unimodal-dominant) thalamic regions, further subdivided into ventral and dorsal regions, during a near-threshold visual perception task. We show that high duty cycle modulation of the ventroanterior (VA) part of thalamus enhances object recognition sensitivity. Sensitivity enhancement magnitude correlates with the core-matrix cell compositions of the stimulated thalamic region. Connectivity analysis of a large-scale functional magnetic resonance imaging dataset confirms strong transmodal connectivity of VA thalamus with frontoparietal and default-mode networks. We also demonstrate target-invariant effects of high duty cycle LIFU disrupting object categorization accuracy. These findings provide causal insight into the cytoarchitectural and functional organization of the thalamus that shape human visual experience, especially the role of matrix-cell-rich, transmodal-dominant VA thalamus.Using low-intensity focused ultrasound, the authors show that targeted modulation of specific thalamic subregions alters human visual perception, revealing a causal role of the anterior thalamus in shaping conscious experience.
ISSN:2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-025-66832-3
Fuente:Health & Medical Collection