The origins of awareness of action (AoA), the ability to report an action just performed, remain elusive. Differing theories ascribe AoA to pre-action, efferent motor/volitional mechanisms versus post-action, afferent sensory/perceptual neural mechanisms. To study these two types of mechanisms and others, we developed a paradigm where very similar aware and unaware actions occur repeatedly. Aware actions demonstrated larger neurophysiological signals both preceding and following movement. The differences included well-known volitional and perceptual event related potentials (PMP, N140, P300), as well as frontal midline theta, event-related alpha/beta desynchronization, and post-move blink rates. On longer time scales, we identified a novel event related potential preceding unaware moves, and found behavioral and pupillometric evidence for decreased attention and arousal over minutes concurrent with AoA loss. Our findings suggest that both dynamic, individual action-associated volitional and perceptual neural activity, as well as long-term attention and arousal states play a role in maintaining AoA.

中文翻译：

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行动意识的神经机制


行动意识（AoA）的起源，即报告刚刚执行的行动的能力，仍然难以捉摸。不同的理论将迎角归因于动作前的传出运动/意志机制与动作后的传入感觉/知觉神经机制。为了研究这两类机制和其他机制，我们开发了一种范式，其中非常相似的有意识和无意识的行为重复发生。有意识的动作在运动之前和之后都表现出更大的神经生理信号。这些差异包括众所周知的意志和知觉事件相关电位（PMP、N140、P300），以及额叶中线 theta、事件相关的 α/β 去同步性和移动后眨眼率。在较长的时间尺度上，我们发现了与无意识移动之前的潜在事件相关的新事件，并发现了行为和瞳孔测量证据，表明注意力和唤醒度在几分钟内下降，同时 AoA 损失。我们的研究结果表明，动态的、与个人行为相关的意志和知觉神经活动，以及长期的注意力和唤醒状态在维持迎角方面发挥着作用。