After reviewing data suggesting the presence of spontaneous neural activity fluctuations in the areas involved in the genesis of awareness, we will discuss our results suggesting that spatiallyвЂђspecific differences in baseline brain activity influence subsequent external stimulus perception. We will here review this work, beginning with summarizing the existing knowledge about neural correlates of self and external awareness. We recently made the hypothesis that variability in perception of identical stimuli could be due to differences in prestimulus baseline brain activity, in areas related to stimulus perception. Despite its demonstrated relevance for human behavior, the sources of these eventвЂђrelated BOLD responses (and related perception) variability are only partially understood. In many cases, this interвЂђtrial inconsistency cannot be attributed to the variability in stimuli. In parallel, trialвЂђtoвЂђtrial variability in eventвЂђrelated BOLD responses magnitude has been shown to be relevant to human perception and behavior. INTRODUCTION In perceptual experiments, withinвЂђsubject variability in perception is commonly observed across multiple presentations of the same stimuli. Consciousness and cerebral baseline activity fluctuations Consciousness and cerebral baseline activity fluctuationsД«andettini, Peter A.

Fransson human brain mapping 2005