DOI: 10.5061/dryad.p8cz8w9xp
title: Data from: The involvement of the human prefrontal cortex in the emergence of visual awareness

description: Exploring the neural mechanisms of awareness is a fundamental task of
 cognitive neuroscience. There is an ongoing dispute regarding the role of
 the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the emergence of awareness, which is
 partially raised by the confound between report- and awareness-related
 activity. To address this problem, we designed a visual awareness task
 that can minimize report-related motor confounding. Our results show that
 saccadic latency is significantly shorter in the aware trials than in the
 unaware trials. Local field potential (LFP) data from 6 patients
 consistently show early (200-300 ms) awareness-related activity in the
 PFC, including event-related potential and high-gamma activity. Moreover,
 the awareness state can be reliably decoded by the neural activity in the
 PFC since the early stage, and the neural pattern is dynamically changed
 rather than being stable during the representation of awareness.
 Furthermore, the enhancement of dynamic functional connectivity, through
 the phase modulation at low frequency, between the PFC and other brain
 regions in the early stage of the awareness trials may explain the
 mechanism of conscious access. These results indicate that the PFC is
 critically involved in the emergence of awareness.
description: This dataset was collected from six adult patients with
 drug-resistant epilepsy (6 males, 32.33±4.75 years old, mean±SEM) and 10
 healthy subjects (4 males, 6 females, age 27.80 ± 3.92, mean ± SEM)
 participated in this study. All subjects had normal or corrected-to-normal
 vision. Eye position data was collected from all the participants,
 obtaining by an infrared eye tracker (Jsmz EM2000C, Beijing Jasmine
 Science & Technology, Co. Ltd), sampling at 1 kHz.
 Electrophysiological signals (LFPs) and brain images (magenetic resonance
 imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans) were obtained from 6
 patients. Stereotaxic EEG depth electrodes (SINOVATION MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY
 CO., LTD. Ltd., Beijing, China) containing 8 to 20 sites were implanted in
 patients in the Department of Neurosurgery, PLA General Hospital. Each
 site was 0.8 mm in diameter and 2 mm in length, with 1.5 mm spacing
 between adjacent sites. A few electrodes were segmented, and the distance
 between the two segments was 10 mm. Electrode placement was based on
 clinical requirements only. Recordings were referenced to a site in white
 matter.
description: # Dataset for the eLife article entitled 'The involvement of the
 human prefrontal cortex in the emergence of visual awareness'
 The dataset contains raw
 eye position data and sEEG data obtained within the study "The
 involvement of the human prefrontal cortex in the emergence of visual
 awareness". The dataset was produced to assess the involvement of the
 man prefrontal cortex in the emergence of visual awareness. ## Description
 of the data and file structure In this dataset, the healthy control data
 includes eye position data, while the patient data includes the eye
 position data, the seeg data and the brain image data. Details for the
 dataset: There are two folders in the Dataset, including the 'Healthy
 Control Data' and 'Patients Data' folder. Healthy Control
 Data: There are ten folders named 'xx_VisualAwareData' and each
 contains the behavioral data of each healthy control. The '.mat'
 files contain the raw behavioral data that required to analyze behavioral
 performance in each experimental session. The detailed information of the
 variables in '.mat' files is as follows: 1. Struct
 'Trial', the detailed information for each trial: [1]
 trial_complete, 1- trial completed correctly; 0-trial aborted. [2] FP, the
 detailed information of the Fixation Point. [3] Sti, the detailed
 information of the cue stimulus (the grating). [4] StiPresence, a
 customized index indicating the experimental conditions. '1'-
 stimulus with varied contrast, adjusting according to staircase method ;
 '2'-salient stimulus with fixed high contrast; '3'-no
 stimulus. [5] TG, the detailed information of the target. The variable
 'RespFP1G2R': 1- Fixation color became green 2-fixation color
 became red; [6] realtimes, the time point for each event. [7] trial_abort,
 1-trial aborted, 0- trial completed correctly; [8] trial_FPbreak, 1-
 fixation break, 0- no fixation break. [9] Resp1L2R, subjects'
 saccadic response, 1- left, 2-right; [10] AwareType1U2A, subjects'
 report, 1- 'Unaware',2-'Aware' [11] eyePos, eye
 position data, eyeX/eyeY - eye position corresponded to the pixels in the
 screen. 'time', corresponded time points to the eye position.
 time1, redundant variables. 2. Struct 'SessionSet', the setup
 information of this session. [1] num_trial, Number of prearranged trials.
 [2] max_itrial, number of finished trials. [3]screen, the detailed
 information of the screen that presented the visual stimulus [4]
 RespFpColorDir, the prearranged color of fixation point,1- green, 2-red.
 [5]StiPresence_Dir, the prearranged StiPresence Index,'1'-
 stimulus with varied contrast, adjusting according to staircase method ;
 '2'-salient stimulus with fixed high contrast; '3'-no
 stimulus. [5] xx_Frames, information that not relevant to current study.
 3. Struct 'Record', the information that extract from the
 'Trial' struct to make a brief online analysis, not necessary
 for the offline analysis. [1] Contrast, the stimulus contrast [2]
 RevContrast, the contrast value in each reversal during the staircase
 procedure. [3] Resp1L2R, subjects' saccadic response, 1- left,
 2-right; [4] Threshold, the determined threshold. 4. Struct
 'Picture', the information that extract from the
 'Trial' struct to make a brief online analysis, not necessary
 for the offline analysis. [1]StiContrast, the different value of each
 stimulus contrast type; [2]SticontrastNum, the trial number of each
 contrast type. [3]AwareNum, the trial number with reported
 'aware' of each contrast type; [4]UnAwareNum, the trial number
 with reported 'unaware' of each contrast type; [5]AwarePercent,
 the percent with reported 'aware' in each contrast
 type;[6]StairFigContrast, the contrast values in the near-threhold trials.
 [7]ResEachContrast, subjects' response in each contrast levels.
 1-unaware,2-aware; Patients Data: There are three folders in this file. In
 the 'EyePositionData' folder, the data are similarly organized
 as above Healthy Control Data. In the 'ImageData' folder, the
 deidentified Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), computer tomography (CT),
 which are required to reconstruct the brain and implanted electrodes, are
 contained in each patient's folder. In the 'SEEG Data'
 folder, the stereotactic electroencephalogram (sEEG) data (data.bdf),
 along with the event information (evt.bdf), is stored separately for each
 experimental session of each patient. ## Sharing/Access information Links
 to other publicly accessible locations of the data:
 Data was derived from the
 following sources: Beijing Normal University