Pain and the evolutionary origins of subjective experience.
Mark Baron, Anne Minert, Marshall Devor
Behavioral and Brain Sciences November 3, 2025 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x25100708 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Neocortex Animals Humans Consciousness Biological evolution Pain perception |
| Key points | Proposes that raw consciousness emerged with pain, since pain's adaptive fight-or-flight message is available at the first central synapse, and that the cerebral cortex later began providing complex computational output to a subcortically operating primeval circuitry of conscious pain experience. |
Abstract
The cerebral neocortex is essential for the complex feature extractions underlying sensory perception. Pain is an exception. Its adaptive message, fight or flee, is already available at the first central synapse. We propose that raw consciousness emerged with pain. Eons later the cortical supercomputer began providing complex computational output to the primeval circuitry of conscious pain experience, already operating subcortically.