An investigation suggests that consciousness may be more linked to the background regions of the brain, responsible for sensory processing, than to the frontal areas associated with intelligence and decision making.
Consciousness – this feeling of being present, seeing, listening and feeling – is one of the greatest mysteries of science. A seven -year study with more than 250 participants comes to shed new light on the issue and challenges the two main theories about where and how it is formed in the brain.
Consciousness is at the center of human experience. It is what allows us to see and hear, imagine and dream, feel pleasure or pain, fear or love. But where, exactly, this phenomenon originates in the ? This is a question that has been neuroscientist and clinical intrigue for decades.
For seven years, researchers from 12 laboratories in the United States, Europe and China analyzed the brain activity of 256 volunteers while they observed images of faces and objects. They collected data of different types: electrical and magnetic activity, blood flow and neuronal communication patterns.
The goal was realize which brain regions associated with conscious experience.
Consciousness may not be where it was thought
The study revealed that consciousness may not have origin front regions of the brain – associated with intelligence, reasoning and decision making – but in zONAS subsequent, responsible for sensory processing, such as vision and hearing.
“The data clearly point to the posterior cortex. Either we have not found any sign of consciousness on the front of the brain, or the signs were much weaker than in the back,” from the Allen Institute in Seattle, one of the study authors.
In other words, Intelligence is about doing, while consciousness is about being.
Two theories in confrontation – and none comes out winning
The study directly confronted the two main scientific theories about the origin of consciousness:
Global Neuronal Working Theory (GNWT): argues that consciousness emerges in the front regions of the brain, where relevant information is widely distributed and accessed to other brain areas.
Integrated Information Theory (IIT): Proposes that consciousness results from the integration of information between various parts of the brain, forming a unified network that generates conscious experience.
The team detected functional connection between the visual (later) and the front areas, which shows how perception relates to thought. However, none of the theories were clearly validated: not found enough lasting connections in the back of the brain to support the IIT, nor consistent signs in the front to support the GNWT.
“It was evident that no isolated experience could decisively refute a theory. They start from different assumptions and current methods are still limited to produce an unambiguous conclusion. Still, we learn a lot about both theories – and how and where and where, in the brain, visual experience can be decoded,” Specialist in Neuroscience at the University of Sussex.
Clinical and ethical applications
This advance in understanding consciousness has practical implications in disorders of consciousness, such as comas or vegetative states and can help identify Cases of covert or hidden awareness In people who, after serious brain injuries, remain awake but cannot communicate. Such cases occur, for example, in vegetative states or prolonged coms and affect about a quarter of the patients, according to a
“If a patient remains in this state for several days without signs of recovery, a discussion with the family about the suspension of treatments that maintain life begins. Knowing where to look for signs of consciousness in the brain can change critical decisions. It may allow us to recognize that that person is there, even if he can’t show him,” he can not show, “ Refere cook.
