Neuroimaging studies measure cerebral rates of glucose and oxygen consumption yet they are often interpreted to support philosophical positions about mental processes presumed to represent behavior. Cognitive Neuroscience has claimed that Neuroimaging resolves Descartes’ dualism of Mind and Matter by mapping such presumed mental processes onto the brain. Bennett & Hacker point out that this is...
An individual, human or animal, is defined to be in a conscious state empirically by the behavioral ability to respond meaningfully to stimuli, whereas the loss of consciousness is defined by unresponsiveness. PET measurements of glucose or oxygen consumption show a widespread approximately 45% reduction in cerebral energy consumption with anesthesia-induced loss of consciousness. Because...