Brain Communications2026Tobias Bauer, Charlotte Gauvry, Sebastian Markett et al.
Hemispherotomy is a surgical intervention for severe drug-resistant epilepsy that fully disconnects the lesional brain hemisphere from the rest of the nervous system. This creates a rare opportunity to explore whether consciousness can be sustained without external input. The default-mode network, linked to introspective mental activity, is considered a necessary, though not sufficient,...
Abstract Contemporary models of neural network function describe the brain as an “active system”, intrinsically generating patterns of activity that pre-structure top-down processing prior to extrinsic stimulation. In this context, self-relatedness is proposed to be one fundamental feature of this spontaneous brain activity. Self-relatedness has been postulated as a neuronal mechanism...