Simulation Investigations of Pyramidal Cells Layer Effect on Conscious Visual Perception.

The aim of presented research is to investigate one of the latest theories of consciousness and its neural correlates in the brain - the dendrite theory. It states that the conscious perception depends on the connectivity between the thalamus and sensory cortex mediated via neural pyramidal cells. In present research we upgraded our spike timing neural network model of visual information perception with an elaborated thalamus structure (first and second order thalamus) as well as more realistic structure of the visual cortex including pyramidal neurons. Conducted simulation experiment demonstrated the important role of the second order thalamus. It was shown also that when the L5 pyramidal cells layer is omitted the propagation of the perceived visual information is destructed.