Consciousness is essential for human existence: the ability to see, dream, imagine, feel pain or pleasure, fear, love and more. But where exactly in the brain resides? This is a question that has long baffled scientists and doctors. A new study offers new perspectives.
In an attempt to identify the parts of the brain that support consciousness, neuroscientific measured electrical and magnetic activity, as well as blood flow, in the brain of 256 people in 12 laboratories from the United States, Europe and Chinawhile the participants visualized various images. Measurements tracked activation in various parts of the brain.
The researchers discovered that consciousness may not arise in The “intelligent” part of the brain -The frontal areas where thought is housed, which gradually grew in the process of human evolution- but rather in the sensory areas in the back of the brain that process the view and sound.
Why is all this important? ”Asked the neuroscientist Christof Koch, of the Allen Institute of Seattle, one of the leaders of the study published in the journal Nature.
“If we want to understand the substrate of consciousness, who has it – adults, prelinguistic children, a fetus in the second quarter, a dog, a mouse, a squid, a crow, a fly – we need to identify the underlying mechanisms in the brain, both for conceptual and clinical reasons,” Koch said.
The subjects of the study were shown images of faces of people and various objects.
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Consciousness is the feeling that is felt to see the drawing of a toaster or Jill’s face. Consciousness is not the same as the behavior associated with this feeling, for example, pressing a button or saying: ‘I see Jill, ”Koch said.
The researchers tested two important scientific theories about consciousness.
According to the global neuronal work space theory, consciousness materializes in the front of the brain, and important information is broadly transmitted throughout the brain. According to integrated information theory, consciousness emanates from the interaction and cooperation of various parts of the brain that work together to integrate information that is experienced consciously.
The findings did not match any of the theories.
“Where are the neuronal footprints of consciousness in the brain?
It is this prefrontal cortex that makes our species exclusively human, promoting cognitive processes of higher order such as planning, decision making, reasoning, expression of personality and moderation of social behavior.
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Or are the footprints in the posterior region of the cortex? ”Koch asked. The posterior cortex houses the regions where audition and vision are processed.
In this case, the evidence is decidedly favorable to the posterior cortex. Or the information related to the conscious experience could not be found in the front or was much weaker than in the posterior. This supports the idea that, although The frontal lobes are crucial for intelligencethe judgment, the reasoning, etc., do not participate crucially in the vision, in the conscious visual perception, ”said Koch.
However, the study did not identify enough connections that last as much as the conscious experience in the back of the brain to sustain the theory of integrated information.
There are practical applications to obtain a deeper understanding of the mechanics of consciousness in the brain.
Koch said it would be important for the way doctors treat patients in a coma or in a vegetative state or with unanswered vigil syndrome, when they are awake but do not have signs of consciousness due to a traumatic brain injury, a cerebral spill, a cardiac arrest, an overdose of drugs or other causes.
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“If the patient remains in this state of inactivity for more than a few days without recovery signs, the clinical team initiates a conversation with the family to ask: ‘Is this what they would have wanted?’ ‘, Koch explained.
Of these patients, between 70% and 90% die because the decision to withdraw the treatment that keeps them alive has been made.
However, we now know that about a quarter of patients in a coma or in a vegetative state/unanswered vigil syndrome are conscious (covert consciousness), but they cannot indicate it in the patient’s bed, ”said Koch, referring to an investigation published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Knowing the traces of consciousness in the brain will allow us to better detect this undercover form of ‘being there’ unable to point out.
(With Reuters information)
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