A Study on the Emergence Mechanism of Human Thought Based on Neural Electrical Activity
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) July 11, 2026 Yansong Xu, Hongsheng Liu
Human thought and consciousness arise from the electrochemical activities of neurons, but how neural electrical signals transform into subjective thoughts remains unclear. This theoretical analysis proposes a hierarchical model: ionic electrical activity leads to local feature coding, then whole-brain signal integration, and finally thought emergence. Although individual action potentials follow the all-or-none law, neurons encode information through firing rate and temporal patterns. Thoughts are macroscopic emergent properties produced by synchronous firing of large-scale neural clusters and recursive loop activities across multiple brain regions. Competitive screening, global broadcasting, and dynamic integration of electrical signals in neural networks constitute the core links from physical electrochemical activities to subjective cognitive thoughts.