The neuroevolutionary sources of mind
Advances in Consciousness Research June 17, 2015 DOI: 10.1075/aicr.92.09pan (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that localized deep brain stimulation of subcortical regions produces coherent emotional behaviors that animals treat as rewards or punishments and that humans report as affective changes, suggesting that the first glimmers of consciousness arose in medial brainstem regions and that these hedonic effects are gold standards for evolved affective qualia. |
Abstract
The bipolar affective structures of brain emotional processes – namely negative and positive affects – provide ideal ways to make scientific progress on the “hard problem” of primal consciousness: wherever in subcortical brain regions one applies highly localized electrical deep brain stimulation, and obtains coherent emotional behaviors, animals treat these brain arousals as ‘rewards’ and ‘punishments’ using various simple learning tasks. Humans also consistently report experienced affective changes during such artificial brain arousals. Such evidence suggests the first glimmers of consciousness in BrainMind evolution arose in medial brainstem regions. These hedonic effects, of subcortical origin, are here deemed gold standards for the existence of evolved affective qualia in animal and human brains, perhaps the first evolutionary substrates of mind, critical for the emergence of cognitive consciousness.
Citations in the library
Cited by 2
- The cross-mammalian neurophenomenology of primal emotional affects: From animal feelings to human therapeutics. The Journal of Comparative Neurology June 1, 2016
- The Affective Core of the Self: A Neuro-Archetypical Perspective on the Foundations of Human (and Animal) Subjectivity. Frontiers in Psychology September 1, 2017
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