Attention required, first

"A team from Beijing Normal University in China turned to a group of people who already had thin electrodes inserted into their brains as part of an experimental headache therapy, bypassing the ethical question of whether this sort of research justifies an invasive operation.

"The researchers administered a visual perception test to these patients. 

"A blinking object was displayed on a screen, which would hide itself for half of the time of the test. 

'These characteristics meant the patients had to pay attention to the object and adjust their eyes and focus to keep watching it, rather than just regard the screen without analyzing it. 

"This thus facilitated conscious perception, with the already-implanted electrodes then recording the brain activity that accompanied this.

"The authors write:

The findings indicate that the intralaminar and medial thalamic nuclei regulate conscious perception. This conclusion represents a significant advance in our understanding of the network that forms the basis of visual consciousness in humans. 

"The researchers say that this is one of the first simultaneous recordings of conscious perception, and [again] the information they recorded, they say, offers strong evidence for the hypothesis that the thalamus region acts a kind of gateway to conscious perception."