Characterizing consciousness through its minimal expressions : from the transient emergence of ...

Characterizing consciousness through its minimal expressions : from the transient emergence of conscious content to its momentary disruption in the epileptic blip syndrome, an electrophysiological, behavioural, and phenomelogical study. Caractériser la conscience à travers ses expressions minimales : de l'émergence transitoire du contenu conscient à sa perturbation momentanée dans le syndrome du blip épileptique, une étude électrophysiologique, comportementale et phénoménologique Soutenance de thèse de Edgar Matringe - le 28 mai 2026 à Grenoble sous la supervision du Pr Laurent Vercueil (MD, PhD), Dr Juan R. Vidal (PhD) en collaboration avec Dr Marcela Perrone-Bertolotti (PhD). https://www.researchgate.net/profile/... 1:50 : Introduction 11:07 : Axis : normal conciousness and NCCs content specific processes 19:32 : Axis 2 : impaired consciousness - Neural and phenomenological correlates of impaired conciousness (NCICs) 39:23 : Discussion In this work, we investigate the neural and phenomenological mechanisms of consciousness by focusing on its most elementary and transient forms, at the interface between normal and impaired experience. This research builds upon the framework of the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs), defined as the minimum neural mechanisms jointly sufficient for any one specific conscious experience, while addressing key methodological challenges in their identification. First, this work contributes to the study of content-specific NCCs by examining the influence of expectations on perceptual awareness (Study 1). Using intracranial EEG and a visual masking paradigm, our results suggest that expectations modulate neural activity in both the inferior frontal cortex and the visual ventral stream, thereby shaping the emergence of conscious visual content and its neural markers. These findings refine candidate NCCs and highlight the role of predictive processes in conscious perception. Second, we introduce a complementary and symmetrical framework: the neural correlates of impaired consciousness (NCICs), defined as the minimum neural mechanisms jointly sufficient to impair any one specific conscious experience. This framework is grounded in the description of the blip syndrome, initially reported in non-epileptic populations as ultra-brief experiences of impending loss of consciousness, hypothesized to reflect a “quasi-epileptic” phenomenon that has remained largely overlooked in the literature. Among epileptic phenomena, absence seizures are considered the most “pure” transient impairments of consciousness and provide a gold-standard model for investigating such disruptions. In this context, blips may represent an even more subtle and fine-grained form of consciousness impairment within the electroclinical continuum of absences. Within this framework, we characterize the epileptic blip syndrome across three studies. In Study 2, we describe a canonical neurophenomenological case of blip syndrome in epilepsy, in which blip-like phenomena were time-locked to brief generalized spike-and-wave bursts. In Study 3, we characterize the electrophysiological profile of spike-and-wave bursts in patients reporting blips, highlighting increased frontal amplitude. In Study 4, we further examine the phenomenology of these events and demonstrate their strong clinical resonance among epileptologists. To our knowledge, these events represent the most minimal form of consciousness impairment described to date, with identifiable neural correlates, thereby supporting epilepsy as a model for investigating the NCICs framework. Beyond their theoretical relevance, these findings have important clinical implications, as blips may constitute an underrecognized epileptic entity. More broadly, this work bridges normal and impaired consciousness by targeting transient NCCs and NCICs, while also highlighting the epistemological limits of such approaches. Altogether, this thesis supports an integrative approach combining electrophysiology and phenomenology to investigate how conscious experiences emerge and transiently fail, providing new insights into the mechanisms underlying the stream of consciousness.