Consciousness science at a crossroads: lessons from disorders of consciousness
Karnig Kazazian, Adrian M. Owen
Frontiers in Science October 30, 2025 DOI: 10.3389/fsci.2025.1715690 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that detecting covert awareness in disorders of consciousness challenges assumptions about prognosis and end-of-life decisions, requiring new legal, ethical, and clinical frameworks. Contends that progress in consciousness science requires large-scale, well-powered, multicenter collaborations with standardized protocols and more phenomenological, naturalistic assessments, and that theories must yield testable predictions, reproducible clinical markers, and ethically actionable insights. |
Abstract
• Detecting covert awareness challenges long-standing assumptions about prognosis and end-of-life decisions, requiring new legal, ethical, and clinical frameworks to avoid misjudging patients' capacity and lived experience. • Progress in consciousness science requires large-scale, well-powered, multicenter collaborations using standardized protocols, and more emphasis on phenomenological, naturalistic assessments encompassing the richness of lived experience. • Disorders of consciousness research shows that consciousness science cannot remain an intellectual exercise-progress demands theories that generate testable predictions, reproducible clinical markers, and ethically actionable insights.
Citations in the library
Cites 4
- Detecting Awareness in the Vegetative State Science September 7, 2006
- A Theoretically Based Index of Consciousness Independent of Sensory Processing and Behavior Science Translational Medicine August 14, 2013
- Theories of consciousness. Nature Reviews Neuroscience July 1, 2022
- Consciousness science: where are we, where are we going, and what if we get there? Frontiers in Science October 30, 2025