Methodological aspects of studying the mechanisms of consciousness.

Two approaches to defining consciousness exist: one treats qualia as inaccessible to third-person science, tying it to the 'hard problem' of why subjective experience arises from physical changes; the other imposes no a priori limits, including first-person experience as an empirical subject. Historically, biology distinguishes proximate from ultimate causation, but this may be insufficient for studying consciousness-brain interaction. Current neuroscience assumes consciousness emerges from neural networks, particularly cortical and thalamocortical circuits, linking directly to clinical research on disorders of consciousness. This review generalizes and systematizes accumulated experimental data in this area.

Study at a glance

Abstract

There are at least two approaches to the definition of consciousness. In the first case, certain aspects of consciousness, called qualia, are considered inaccessible for research from a third person and can only be described through subjective experience. This approach is inextricably linked with the so-called "hard problem of consciousness", that is, the question of why consciousness has qualia or how any physical changes in the environment can generate subjective experience. With this approach, some aspects of consciousness, by definition, cannot be explained on the basis of external observations and, therefore, are outside the scope of scientific research. In the second case, a priori constraints do not constrain the field of scientific investigation, and the best explanation of the experience in the first person is included as a possible subject of empirical research. Historically, in the study of cause-and-effect relationships in biology, it was customary to distinguish between proximate causation and ultimate causation existing in biological systems. Immediate causes are based on the immediate influencing factors [1]. Proximate causation has evolutionary explanations. When studying biological systems themselves, such an approach is undoubtedly justified, but it often seems insufficient when studying the interaction of consciousness and the brain [2,3]. Current scientific communities proceed from the assumption that the physical substrate for the generation of consciousness is a neural network that unites various types of neurons located in various brain structures. Many neuroscientists attach a key role in this process to the cortical and thalamocortical neural networks. This question is directly related to experimental and clinical research in the field of disorder of consciousness. Progress in this area of medicine depends on advances in neuroscience in this area and is also a powerful source of empirical information. In this area of consciousness research, a large amount of experimental data has been accumulated, and in this review an attempt was made to generalize and systematize.