Abstract
Consciousness can be viewed as an emerging property of the brain and as such is certainly one of the most complex biological phenomena. Different models of consciousness that rely on detailed biological, physiological, or clinical premises have been proposed. The models presented here are part of the efforts by neuroscientists to address this complex issue.
Baars proposed one of the first neurobiological models of consciousness describing a “conscious access hypothesis” in a framework called the “global workspace.” He did not, however, specify how the psychological construct of the conscious workspace was implemented in terms of neuronal networks. We review the models of consciousness proposed by Dehaene, Changeux and Naccache, Edelman and Tononi, and Damasio, which integrate the theoretical framework proposed by Baars into a neurobiological theory. These models combine cognitive, neuroanatomical, neurophysiological, neuroimaging, and neurobiological methods to study consciousness, describing its cognitive and affective nature, its behavioral correlates, its possible evolutionary origin, and its functional role.
One of the main reasons why a unified model of consciousness remains a challenge is the difficulty to bridge the structure–function divide. The relationship between the structure of the nervous system and its function is still poorly understood. The eminently diverse structural connectivity of the brain coupled with the extremely rapid exchange of information between cells means that direct measuring of brain activity and function is an enormous challenge. Researchers believe that combining advances in neuroscience and computation science will help us to unravel higher cognitive brain functions. Starting from individual neurons and going to large-scale neuronal networks, we may learn how to test the role of defined neuronal elements in the generation of consciousness.
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Notes
- 1.
John Locke (1632–1704) was interested in psychology and addressed topics such as the formation of self and consciousness. René Descartes (1596–1650) famously known for his statement “I think, therefore I am” shaped the philosophical discussion of the mind–body problem up to modern times.
- 2.
Jean-Pierre Changeux is a French neuroscientist who together with Dehaene is investigating the neuronal basis of cognitive functions. In his book Neuronal Man (L’homme neuronal), he proposes an elegant dialogue between the biological brain and the mind. Gerald Edelman is an American biologist (1929–2014) who turned late in his career to neuroscience. Influenced by his early work on the immune system, his model of the conscious brain is based on developmental selection. In a thoughtful book, The Remembered Present, he proposes an original biological theory of consciousnesses. Antonio Damasio is a neurologist who studies behavior, in particular emotions. In Descartes’ Error, he calls for an end to the division between mind and body and contends that even our most rational decisions are rooted in emotions and feelings.
- 3.
Priming is a term used by psychologists to characterize an implicit memory effect in which exposure to one stimulus affects the response to another stimulus.
- 4.
Gamma waves are fast neural oscillations around 40 Hz. They are thought to be important in determining neuronal synchrony.
- 5.
New techniques such as optogenetics, so far limited to animal experimentation, offer both wide spatial coverage and high temporal resolution. They are helping to establish how mental representations map onto patterns of neural activity (Deisseroth 2014).
- 6.
The binding problem concerns how the unity of conscious perception originates from the combination of the activity of different neuronal p opulations. For example, how does the brain choose the correct sensory data to represent an object and not some illusory reconstruction of its features?
- 7.
Philosophy often refers to the emergence of subjective conscious experience by using the term qualia. Damasio (2010) suggests correctly that while the qualia issue is traditionally regarded as a problem of consciousness, it should be more appropriately considered as a concept applied to the problem of mind. All conscious experiences or mental processes are accompanied by feelings and qualia refer to this subjective experience.
- 8.
Aberrant intrinsic organization and interconnectivity of the SN, CEN, and DMN are thought to play a role in many psychiatric and neurological disorders. For example, a functional deficit in the insular–cingulate SN gives rise to aberrant engagement of the frontoparietal CEN, compromising cognition and goal-relevant adaptive behavior. For a more detailed discussion of the role of large-scale brain networks in psychopathology, see Menon (2011).
- 9.
(D. S. Modha, IBM Research, Almaden, San Jose, CA, USA, personal communication). The joule is a unit of energy. A micro joule is 10−3 J, a pico joule is 10–12 J, and a femto joule is 10–15 J.
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Steck, A., Steck, B. (2016). Consciousness. In: Brain and Mind. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21287-6_1
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