Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 17, 2026
Claudia Passos-Ferreira, David J. Chalmers
A survey of neuroscientists, psychologists, philosophers, and other experts at two conferences on consciousness found that a majority believe newborn infants are conscious. A plurality of respondents think consciousness emerges prenatally after 24 weeks of gestation, while self-consciousness emerges postnatally after 6 months of age. Large majorities agree that infants have sensory and affective consciousness, but fewer think they have cognitive or agentive consciousness. A plurality locates the neural basis of infant consciousness in the sensory cortex. Most experts favor behavioral and neural markers, rather than theories of consciousness, as guides to studying infant consciousness.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
William Marshall, Graham Findlay, Larissa Albantakis et al.
Integrated information theory (IIT) holds that consciousness corresponds to a system's maximum intrinsic, specific, and unitary cause-effect power, quantified as integrated information (Φ). The appropriate grain of analysis—from micro to macro—is the one that maximizes Φ. This paper presents a formal framework for computing Φ in systems that include macro units, thereby identifying a system's intrinsic units. It extends IIT 4.0's mathematics to assess cause-effect power across grains. Simulations of simple systems show that including macro units can yield higher integrated information than micro-only systems. Three examples illustrate how different macro units increase cause-effect power. The framework provides a foundation for testing and inferring consciousness.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
James W. Sanders, Raphaël Millière, Ema Demšar et al.
The psychedelic compound DMT induces highly immersive experiences that often include encounters with seemingly sentient presences. Using micro-phenomenology, immersion under DMT was characterized as a structured continuum from subtle to gross forms. Twenty-three participants received 20 mg intravenous DMT during fMRI-EEG, followed by detailed interviews. Analysis yielded 125 phenomenological categories describing structural dimensions like sensory faculties, spatial organization, and self-world configuration. Bodily effects typically preceded visual and auditory ones, and perceived presences emerged only after multisensory integration and 3D spatial characteristics had developed, illustrating a hierarchical relationship between subtle and gross immersion. Perceived presences varied widely in sensory modality, semantic complexity, and relational mode, showing immersion as a dynamic, constructive process.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Ralph Andrews, Paul M Dockree
A new framework called Rhythmic Embodied Perception (REP) proposes that breathing rhythms shape conscious experience by modulating brain activity. Slow respiratory cycles influence cortical oscillations, creating brief periods of low excitability during which sensory information is most likely to reach awareness. Volitional breath control can stabilize these dynamics by engaging neuromodulatory systems, extending these perceptual windows and enhancing attentional stability. The framework generates testable predictions, such as that respiratory phase should affect sensory detection and that slow-paced breathing should strengthen respiration-cortex coupling. It integrates neuroscience, theories of discrete perception, and yogic concepts of prana, positioning respiration as a trainable tool for shaping perception and attention.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Karen R Konkoly, Daniel J Morris, Kaitlyn Hurka et al.
REM-sleep dreaming can be experimentally guided toward specific unsolved problems and improve next-day creative problem-solving. Lucid dreamers who heard soundtracks of unsolved puzzles during REM sleep reported more dreams about those puzzles. In a post-hoc analysis, participants whose dreams were successfully biased by the sound cues solved more of the associated puzzles after waking. The study provides experimental evidence that REM dreams themselves, not just sleep-related memory reactivation, contribute to creative insight, addressing a long-standing gap in dream research that had relied on anecdotal or confounded evidence.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Valerie van Mulukom
Consciousness can be understood as a dynamic continuum between two self-states: a reflective, narrative mode supported by the default mode network, and an experiential, affective-salience mode anchored in the salience network (anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex). The experiential self-state integrates interoceptive and exteroceptive signals into a coherent, non-propositional sense of being-here-as-subject, with sustained non-reflective meta-awareness. Within predictive processing, this state involves reduced precision-weighting of high-level self-referential priors, governed by dopaminergic, noradrenergic, and serotonergic mechanisms. This framework accounts for individual differences in mindfulness and absorption, and for conditions with dysregulated salience processing. Self-transcendent experiences—absorption, meditation, awe, mystical or religious experiences—are expressions of the experiential self-state.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Silvana Lozito, Stefano Lasaponara, Jianghao Liu et al.
Surface EEG recordings from 10 patients, previously studied with intracerebral electrodes, were analyzed to bridge the gap between depth and scalp measures of conscious report. Pooling trials across participants, event-related potentials showed a significant positive deflection for Seen compared to Unseen targets at frontal sites 350-500 milliseconds after the target, consistent with a P3b component. Time-frequency analysis revealed pretarget beta/gamma power modulations at frontal electrodes and post-target increased oscillatory activity at occipital sites. Clustering of intracerebral data identified two patterns: an early Visual cluster (120-340 ms) and a later Accumulation cluster (230-490 ms). Ridge regression showed the Accumulation cluster contributed more to predicting scalp ERPs, highlighting the greater role of late integrative mechanisms over early sensory processes in conscious experience.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
María del Carmen Tejada, Antonia Zepeda, Alejandro Troncoso et al.
Empathy relies on bodily processes, but how Parkinson's disease (PD) disrupts this is unclear. Using a neurophenomenological approach, 42 people with PD watched pain-related videos while their self-reports, postural movement, heart rate, and electrodermal activity were recorded. Phenomenological interviews after exposure revealed two distinct empathic modes: Resonance Bodyssence, where emotions tightly couple with bodily sensations and movement, and Marginal Resonance Bodyssence, a more observational, cognitively mediated response with reduced bodily resonance. Integrating first-person data with quantitative measures shows that interindividual variability in motor and physiological responses in PD reflects distinct embodied empathic engagements, advancing an embodied account of empathy as a heterogeneous, dynamically enacted phenomenon.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Shogo Tanaka
Authentic machine consciousness cannot arise from language models alone because they operate in 'spoken speech'—linguistic patterns detached from lived experience. Drawing on phenomenology and developmental psychology, the paper argues that self-consciousness is a relational quality emerging from the Aida, the Japanese concept of the 'in-between' between interacting agents. The 'Aidification' paradigm proposes grounding AI in embodied interaction, tracing how the self develops through bodily experience: from hands as visible instruments to the face, which requires another's gaze for self-objectification. Language is reconceptualized as a 'cane for thought' enabling creative meaning-generation anchored in human felt sense. This shifts cognition to the interactional field, envisioning symbiotic intelligence co-created between humans and machines.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Lancelot da Costa, Anil K. Seth, Karl Friston et al.
A Rosetta Stone hypothesis from predictive processing proposes that beliefs serve as a central hub linking phenomenology, behavior, and neural dynamics. Under the assumption that phenomenology is a function of beliefs, the authors derive mathematical predictions for subjective similarity judgments, cognitive metabolic cost, subjective cognitive effort, and time perception. They review the connection between beliefs and neural dynamics to complete a generative passage for neurophenomenology, omitting the belief–behavior link as already documented. Testing these predictions will inform the validity of the central assumption and advance the neurophenomenology research program.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Zeynep Temel Başer, Gülsüm Uzer, Hansa Şentürk et al.
A new self-report questionnaire, the Consciousness States Comparison Scale: REM Version (CSCS-REM), was developed to measure how dream consciousness during REM sleep differs from waking consciousness. The final 35-item scale, derived from data from 432 participants, captures eight dimensions: Metacognitive Awareness, Cognitive Fluency, Memory, Temporal Awareness, Spatial Awareness, Emotional Awareness, Perceptual and Bodily Senses, and Interoceptive and Chemical Senses. The scale accounted for 56.04% of the variance, with reliability coefficients ranging from .639 to .915. Confirmatory factor analysis in a separate sample of 211 participants showed excellent model fit. The CSCS-REM enables systematic testing of continuity and discontinuity hypotheses in consciousness research.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Stefano Palminteri, Charley M Wu
The current consensus for attributing consciousness to artificial entities like Large Language Models relies on computational functionalism, which proposes that consciousness should be ascribed based on computational equivalence. This opinion piece criticizes that approach and argues for an alternative 'behavioral inference principle', whereby consciousness is attributed only when doing so helps explain and predict observed behaviors. The authors believe this principle offers an epistemologically valid and operationalizable criterion for assessing machine consciousness.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Vikas N O'Reilly-Shah, Alessandro Maria Selvitella, Aaron Schurger
The unfolding argument claims that causal structure cannot matter for consciousness because any recurrent neural network can be replaced by a feedforward network with the same input-output behavior. This paper shows a boundary condition: when a network has rapid plasticity—weights that change quickly based on history—the equivalence fails. Mathematical proofs demonstrate that such systems encode information in ways a static feedforward network cannot capture, including history-dependent dynamics, complex temporal encoding, and perturbational instability. The results do not prove that recurrence or plasticity is necessary for consciousness, but they show that the unfolding argument does not block empirical tests of whether these properties matter.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Annie G Bryant, Christopher J. Whyte
A family of functional connectivity measures based on tracking the 'center of mass' between two brain signals outperforms other measures at decoding conscious visual perception from magnetoencephalography data. These measures generalize across brain regions central to both Integrated Information Theory and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory. Neural mass models simulating each theory's hypothesized dynamics showed that both the GNWT-based model (featuring delayed ignition dynamics) and the IIT-based model (relying on synchronous sensory dynamics) captured the observed connectivity patterns. However, the presence of ignition dynamics independent of task-demand conditions contradicts IIT predictions, lending tentative support to GNWT. The work introduces a framework for systematically identifying and testing neural correlates of conscious vision.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Jonathan Lomax Boyd, Eric Allen Jensen, Aaron Michael Jensen et al.
Public views on biocomputers—biological computers built with brain organoids—were explored in an online survey. Most respondents supported research on and creation of biocomputers, and for some, support increased as the devices were perceived to be more conscious, a pattern that conflicts with standard moral philosophy. Three distinct clusters of opinion emerged regarding the scope of consciousness in human and non-human entities, and these clusters strongly predicted views on the cognitive capacities and moral status of biocomputers. The findings suggest that public ethical reasoning about engineered neural systems may not follow conventional philosophical frameworks, highlighting the need for broader stakeholder engagement to inform governance.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Asa Young, Marissa Ericson, Jonathan W. Schooler
Consciousness depends not only on the brain but on a continuous dialogue between brain and body. Cardiac, respiratory, and gastric rhythms modulate brain signals to support interoception, emotion, and selfhood. Clinical and subclinical conditions involve dysrhythmia in these bodily rhythms and atypical brain-body coupling. An optimal window of brain-body synchrony exists; beyond it, adverse effects occur, while non-clinical stress-related increases in synchrony may help coordinate cognitive systems for functions like multisensory integration. Disturbing bodily rhythms or their coupling to the brain alters phenomenological experience enough to sometimes meet clinical criteria, supporting a categorical difference between an embodied agent and a brain-in-a-vat.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2026
Bianca Ventura, Andrea Buccellato, Saketh Malipeddi et al.
Vipassana and Shoonya meditation produce distinct alpha-band brain dynamics, with differences more apparent in temporal variability than in average activity. Vipassana, involving systematic body scanning, showed lower variability and more regular temporal patterns in both peak frequency and power of alpha oscillations. Shoonya, a non-directed attention practice, exhibited higher variability and irregularity in these measures. The findings suggest that dynamic features of brain activity, such as variability and temporal irregularity, may distinguish contemplative practices better than static averages, and could reflect a shared property of brain and experience.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
September 24, 2025
Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup, S. Fink, Morten Overgaard
In the study of consciousness, multiple competing hypotheses about the neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) are usually treated as mutually exclusive, with the expectation that only one will ultimately be correct. This paper proposes an alternative view: each hypothesis and its associated evidence may be simultaneously valid. The authors develop the multiple generator hypothesis (MGH), which distinguishes between principles—ways consciousness can be brought about—and generators—how these principles are implemented in physical systems. The MGH is explicated and illustrated with examples from consciousness studies, and its implications are shown to raise novel questions and considerations for the field.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 4, 2025
S. Kotler, D. Parvizi-Wayne, Michael Mannino et al.
Flow and intuition are both rooted in nonconscious information processing but differ in their roles in action and cognition. Intuition is a rapid, nonconscious decision-making process, while flow enables optimal cognitive control and performance without conscious deliberation. Using a revised dual-processing framework and an active inference perspective, the authors reconcile the paradox of enhanced intuition during flow—a state of heightened cognitive control. The account advances understanding of human cognition and consciousness and raises questions for future research on harnessing flow and intuition to improve performance and wellbeing.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2025
Eleftheria Pistolas, Johan Wagemans
A Ganzfeld—a homogeneous, unstructured visual field—induces visual hallucinations and characteristic decays of color and brightness. This paper synthesizes literature from the 1930s onward to clarify terminology for these decaying experiences. Using a custom-built Ganzfeld space to avoid the confinement of translucent goggles, the authors employed a multi-method approach combining quantitative and qualitative measures. They identified three distinct types of decays: 'fade-out', 'black-out', and 'blank-out', reporting their prevalence and qualitative features. The work also examines the role of eye movements and blinks on experienced phenomena, providing groundwork for studying Ganzfeld experiences in relation to consciousness and neural correlates.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2025
Anikó Kusztor, Nirmitee Mulay, Makiko Yamada et al.
People experiencing depersonalization or derealization often report that the world looks faded, foggy, or dream-like. Two online experiments tested whether these subjective reports reflect genuine changes in visual perception. Participants with varying levels of depersonalization/derealization symptoms rated how real naturalistic images looked (Experiment 1, 200 participants) or adjusted the contrast and saturation of images to match their everyday visual experience (Experiment 2, 125 participants). In both experiments, strong Bayesian evidence supported the null models: symptom severity did not affect realness ratings or vividness adjustments. The results suggest that the altered vividness experience in derealization does not stem from genuine perceptual changes but rather from metacognitive interpretation of those experiences.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2025
Annalisa Pascarella, Philipp Thölke, David Meunier et al.
Expert Buddhist monks practicing Samatha (focused-attention) and Vipassana (open-monitoring) meditation showed increased neural signal complexity and widespread reductions in gamma-band long-range temporal correlations and 1/f slope compared to resting state. Analysis of deviation from criticality revealed distinct computational states between the two practices, suggesting their different phenomenological properties arise from specific dynamic characteristics. Contrary to most prior reports, oscillatory gamma power decreased during meditation, a difference attributed to correcting the power spectrum for broadband 1/f activity. These findings advance understanding of neural processes underlying focused-attention and open-monitoring meditation.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2025
Katrin Reichenbach, Marcus Rothkirch, Lucca Jaeckel et al.
The brain resolves ambiguous sensory signals by using recent perceptual history as a predictive context. When sensory input violates this temporal context, perceptual prediction errors arise and drive spontaneous switches between alternative interpretations. Using fMRI and a bistable structure-from-motion paradigm with 26 participants, the study compared neural responses to perceptual conflicts induced by violations of temporal context versus spatial context. Only the anterior insula bilaterally showed activation for both types of conflict. Approximate prediction-error signals also appeared in the right inferior frontal gyrus and right inferior parietal lobe. These results suggest the anterior insular cortex plays a key role in detecting perceptual conflicts and constructing unambiguous conscious experiences.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2025
Trevor Hewitt, Ioanna Amaya, Romy Beauté et al.
Exposure to rapid, bright stroboscopic light has been known for over 200 years to induce vivid visual hallucinations of color and geometric shapes. This narrative review summarizes the history of research on stroboscopic light stimulation (SLS), its recreational and lay-therapeutic uses, the phenomenology of the experiences it produces, and current understanding of potential neural mechanisms. Despite progress, fundamental questions remain about the full characterization of its phenomenology, its precise physiological origins, the conditions under which it leads to altered states of consciousness, and possible clinical applications.
Neuroscience of Consciousness
January 1, 2025
Vince Polito, Stephanie Howarth, Andrew Roberts et al.
Anomalous experiences like hallucinations and mystical experiences are linked to delusional ideation, religiosity, and paranormal beliefs, which some researchers attribute to 'transliminality'—a sensitivity to stimuli entering consciousness. The strongest prior evidence came from a 2002 study finding transliminality predicted responses to subperceptual primes. This high-powered replication attempted to confirm that transliminality predicts identification of such primes and that this is due to stimulus sensitivity, not response bias. Participants completed a transliminality measure and an online card-guessing task with subperceptual primes. Results showed strong evidence against any association between transliminality and prime perception in both tasks, failing to support transliminality as a measure of subperceptual processing.