Back

Multimodal lesion mapping in affective blindsight reveals dual amygdala and superior temporal sulcus contributions to nonconscious emotion processing

Prabhakar, A. T.; Margabandhu, K.; Bosco, C.; Jepegnanam, R. T.; Prasad, T.; Veronica, S.; Sunderraj, E. S.; Prasad, J. D.; Ninan, G. A.; Bal, D.; Vanjare, H.; Jasper, A.; Mannam, P.; McKendrick, A. M.; Carter, O.; Garrido, M. I.

2025-10-16 neuroscience
10.1101/2025.10.13.682195 bioRxiv
Show abstract

Affective blindsight, the capacity to discriminate emotional stimuli despite bilateral damage to the primary visual cortex (V1) and without conscious awareness, offers a unique model of non-conscious visual processing. Subcortical pathways involving the pulvinar and amygdala have been proposed, but putative cortical contributions remain unclear. We examined 182 patients, including 31 with bilateral V1 lesions. Among these, 15 had cortical visual loss and 7 showed affective blindsight. Using behavioral testing, lesion symptom mapping, and tractography, we found that preserved pulvinar connectivity with both the posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) and the amygdala is necessary for affective blindsight. These findings provide causal evidence for a multi-route architecture, identifying the pulvinar-STS pathway, alongside the pulvinar-amygdala pathway, as a critical substrate for non-conscious affective processing.

Matching journals

The top 7 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

1
Brain
◐ 168 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
11.7%
Similar papers in this journal
2
Brain Communications
◐ 166 papers in training set
Top 0.2%
11.7%
Similar papers in this journal
3
Nature Communications
○ 5641 papers in training set
Top 24%
6.6%
Similar papers in this journal
4
Scientific Reports
○ 3612 papers in training set
Top 11%
6.6%
Similar papers in this journal
5
NeuroImage: Clinical
○ 144 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
4.8%
6
Cortex
○ 119 papers in training set
Top 0.4%
4.8%
Similar papers in this journal
7
The Journal of Neuroscience
● 1025 papers in training set
Top 4%
4.3%
50% of probability mass above
8
Communications Biology
○ 993 papers in training set
Top 5%
3.4%
9
Brain Structure and Function
○ 93 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
3.4%
10
Cerebral Cortex
◐ 396 papers in training set
Top 2%
2.7%
11
Human Brain Mapping
○ 329 papers in training set
Top 2%
2.7%
12
Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
○ 71 papers in training set
Top 0.6%
2.4%
13
eLife
● 5828 papers in training set
Top 46%
2.1%
14
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
● 2444 papers in training set
Top 28%
1.7%
15
NeuroImage
○ 903 papers in training set
Top 5%
1.7%
16
Nature Human Behaviour
○ 95 papers in training set
Top 1%
1.7%
17
Science Advances
● 1243 papers in training set
Top 26%
1.1%
18
Nature Neuroscience
○ 252 papers in training set
Top 4%
1.1%
19
Scientific Data
○ 209 papers in training set
Top 2%
1.1%
20
Epilepsia
○ 56 papers in training set
Top 0.5%
1.0%
21
Neuropsychologia
○ 85 papers in training set
Top 1%
0.8%
22
Neurology
○ 50 papers in training set
Top 2%
0.8%
23
Neuron
○ 337 papers in training set
Top 5%
0.8%
24
Molecular Psychiatry
○ 282 papers in training set
Top 6%
0.8%
25
PLOS ONE
● 5266 papers in training set
Top 59%
0.8%
26
The Cerebellum
○ 17 papers in training set
Top 0.3%
0.8%
27
Cell Reports
○ 1498 papers in training set
Top 29%
0.6%
28
iScience
○ 1154 papers in training set
Top 42%
0.6%
29
Translational Psychiatry
○ 260 papers in training set
Top 4%
0.6%
30
Frontiers in Neurology
○ 102 papers in training set
Top 3%
0.6%

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.