Neurosurgery and consciousness: historical sketch and future possibilities

Abstract

<jats:p>Neurosurgery has played an important role in the development of neuroscience and the science of consciousness. In this paper, the authors reflect on some of the historical contributions of neurosurgeons to the science of consciousness and discuss the ways in which clinical neurosurgery can contribute to the science of consciousness in the 21st century. An approach to the “hard problem” is proposed based on the principles of psychophysics, and the opportunities offered by intracranial recording and stimulation in patients capable of reporting changes in subjective experience are discussed. Such an approach will allow the systematic study and description of the bridging relationships between neurobiology and conscious experience.</jats:p>

A roadmap for the study of conscious audition and its neural basis

“…Although relationships between neural activity and conscious perception have been pondered since the beginning of the mind-brain sciences [1][2][3][4][5][6], many have viewed the problem as scientifically intractable. However, employing increasingly powerful methods [7], recent years have seen a dramatic increase in studies pursuing the so-called neural correlates of consciousness, or NCC [8], defined as the 'the minimal set of neural events jointly sufficient for a specific conscious experience' [9] (e.g. the phenomenal experience of hearing a sound).…”

Transdisciplinary Team in Rehabilitation of Unconscious Brain-Damaged Persons: Grounds and Practice

“…The existence of mental states associated with certain physical systems gives these systems an opportunity to take into account their own individual story in their behavior". This forced the representatives of neuroscience to avoid simplifications, who have also understood the incompleteness of looking for consciousness in brain depths [11].…”