Epileptic seizures are often characterized by profound alteration of consciousness (AOC). This is particularly frequent in temporal lobe seizures (TLS), a subgroup of seizures originating in the temporal (and usually mesial temporal) brain areas. The mechanisms of AOC in TLS have long been discussed and several theories have been proposed. Recent investigations have provided new hypotheses linking abnormal synchrony provoked by epileptic discharges and the dysfunction of brain regions involved in consciousness processing. In particular, the global workspace (GW) theory proposes that conscious processing results from coherent neuronal activity between widely distributed brain regions, with fronto-parietal associative cortices as key elements. Recently, we have shown that AOC was contemporary to non-linear increases of neural synchrony within distant cortico-cortical and cortico-thalamic networks. We have interpreted these results in the light of GW theory, and suggest that excessive synchrony could prevent this distributed network from reaching the minimal level of differentiation and complexity necessary to the coding of conscious representations.

中文翻译：

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癫痫发作引起的意识丧失过程中，神经活动和大脑同步。

癫痫性癫痫发作通常以意识的深刻改变（AOC）为特征。这在颞叶癫痫发作（TLS）中特别常见，TLS是起源于颞部（通常是颞内侧）脑部癫痫发作的一个子组。对TLS中AOC的机制进行了长期的讨论，并提出了一些理论。最近的研究提供了新的假说，这些假说将由癫痫放电引起的异常同步性与参与意识加工的大脑区域功能障碍联系在一起。尤其是，全球工作区（GW）理论提出，有意识的加工是由广泛分布的大脑区域之间以连贯的神经元活动为结果的，其中额顶相关的皮质是关键要素。最近，我们已经证明，AOC对于遥远的皮质-皮质和皮质-丘脑网络中神经同步的非线性增加是当代的。我们已经根据GW理论解释了这些结果，并提出过度同步可能会阻止此分布式网络达到有意识表示编码所必需的最小区分和复杂度。