Harvard scientists think they've pinpointed the physical source of consciousness
Scientists have struggled for millennia to understand human consciousness - the awareness of one's existence. Despite advances in neuroscience, we still don't really know where it comes from, and how it arises.
But researchers think they might have finally figured out its physical origins, after pinpointing a network of three specific regions in the brain that appear to be crucial to consciousness.
"For the first time, we have found a connection between the brainstem region involved in arousal and regions involved in awareness, two prerequisites for consciousness," said lead researcher Michael Fox from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre at Harvard Medical School.
The Harvard team has identified not only the specific brainstem region linked to arousal, but also two cortex regions, that all appear to work together to form consciousness.
Paper:
http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2016/11/04/WNL.0000000000003404.short
Source & further reading:
http://www.sciencealert.com/harvard-scientists-think-they-ve-pinpointed-the-neural-source-of-consciousness
#neuroscience #consciousness #humanbrain #research #science
Mark Bruce just incase you've missed this gem.
ReplyDeleteSo could this mean we could create a Rocket Racoon
en.m.wikipedia.org - Rocket Raccoon - Wikipedia
This will really help with protecting brains during medical treatment.
ReplyDeleteAntenna Wilde Yeah, that'd be an interesting scan! I'd volunteer, heh. I haven't been on a trip in decades!
ReplyDeleteJust because you can measure something doesn't mean you understand it. All these experiments where something lights up on the screen when sombody does something, are interesring, maybe even promising, but they just show that we lack a model, something that would explain how things work. I think we are still far from a good understanding what consciousness is, and even further from understanding how is emerges and works.
ReplyDeleteYeah...I agree, the brain is too complex, we are far from understanding the entire picture.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why this comes to mind (no pun intended), I think it's Lovecraft, but if you peer into the abyss long enough...
ReplyDelete