Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2021
Francesco Ellia, Jeremiah Hendren, Matteo Grasso et al.
61 citations
Subjective experience can be objectively explained in physical terms by moving beyond cognitive functions and understanding how experience is structured. Integrated information theory provides a framework to account for both the essential properties of every experience and the specific properties that make particular experiences feel the way they do, avoiding the fallacy that only objective properties should be explained by science.
Iris (Roma Tre University)
January 1, 2017
Alessio Bucci, Matteo Grasso
25 citations
Predictive Processing (PP) offers a useful framework for understanding the peculiarities of dreaming but cannot fully explain how phenomenal consciousness arises during sleep. The authors propose that Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is better suited to address the emergence of consciousness and shows points of contact with PP. PP aligns with contemporary research on the adaptive function of sleep, and IIT can account for dreaming in evolutionary terms. Future research should examine bodily predictions in sleeping brain activity and the roles of REM and NREM sleep stages in refining the predictive machinery.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2021
Matteo Grasso, Andrew M. Haun, Giulio Tononi
20 citations
A grid-like neural network representing posterior cortical areas can perform the same fixation function as a map-like pretectal circuit, but only the grid-like network's cause-effect structure, as analyzed by Integrated Information Theory, accounts for the subjective experience of space as extended. Standard functional analysis explains what the model does—encoding, decoding, and triggering eye movements—but cannot explain why a human fixating a stimulus would also see it at a location. The map-like network, lacking lateral connections, is functionally equivalent yet cannot account for the phenomenal properties of space.
Entropy
February 11, 2023
William Marshall, Matteo Grasso, William G. P. Mayner et al.
19 citations
Integrated information theory (IIT) proposes that consciousness is identical to the cause-effect structure generated by a maximally irreducible substrate (a Φ-structure). This work introduces a definition for system-integrated information (φs) grounded in IIT's postulates of existence, intrinsicality, information, and integration. It examines how determinism, degeneracy, and connectivity fault lines affect system-integrated information. The proposed measure identifies complexes as systems whose φs exceeds that of any overlapping candidate systems.
iScience
October 17, 2025
Renzo Comolatti, Matteo Grasso, Giulio Tononi
The conscious present feels flowing because it is composed of phenomenal distinctions (moments) that are directed and related via inclusion, connection, and fusion, according to Integrated Information Theory (IIT). IIT aims to account for both the presence and quality of consciousness in objective, physical terms. Unfolding the cause-effect structure of directed grids can explain why time feels flowing. Time, on this view, is not a process in clock time but a structure specified by the system's current state. Implications for the psychophysics, philosophy, and neuroscience of time are outlined.
arXiv Preprint Archive
November 30, 2024
Renzo Comolatti, Matteo Grasso, Giulio Tononi
Time feels flowing because the conscious present is composed of directed phenomenal moments that are related through directed inclusion, connection, and fusion, according to Integrated Information Theory (IIT). IIT accounts for the presence and quality of consciousness in physical terms by unfolding the cause-effect structure of a substrate's architecture and current state. Previous work showed how non-directed grids can account for the feeling of space as extended; here, directed grids are shown to account for the feeling of time as flowing. The experienced present corresponds not to a process in clock time but to a cause-effect structure specified by a system in its current state: time is a structure, not a process.
Cambridge quarterly of healthcare ethics : CQ : the international journal of healthcare ethics committees
October 18, 2023
Matthew Owen, Zirui Huang, Catherine Duclos et al.
Human cerebral organoids (HCOs), grown from stem cells to mimic developing brain tissue, may eventually manifest rudimentary consciousness, despite current limitations. Since HCOs provide no behavioral indicators of consciousness, this article applies three neurobiological theories—the Temporal Circuit Hypothesis, the Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, and the Integrated Information Theory—to assess whether HCOs could possess a neurobiological capacity for consciousness, analogous to how these theories are used with unresponsive brain-injured patients.
The Behavioral and brain sciences
March 23, 2022
Giulio Tononi, Melanie Boly, Matteo Grasso et al.
Integrated information theory (IIT) begins with phenomenology and predicts that only select physical substrates can support consciousness. The theory's account of experience—a cause-effect structure quantified by integrated information—has nothing to do with information transfer. This commentary outlines IIT's axioms and postulates, correcting major misconceptions from a target article that misrepresents the theory's foundations and ignores essential publications.