From sensory motor and perceptual development to primary consciousness in the fetus: converging neural, behavioral, and imaging correlates of cognition-mediated emergent transitions

Abstract

We reviewed current evidence from experimental, clinical, and animal research about the level and content of cognition and consciousness in the fetus from convergent observations of behavior and measurable neurobiological changes, including neuroimaging findings. Between the second and the third trimesters, there are compelling observations that the fetus is capable of basic cognitive and behavioral processes that can scaffold the emergence of primary consciousness, mediated and governed by the connectivities between brainstem, thalamic, cortical subplate circuitry, and the maturing cortex. This work integrates the most recent transdisciplinary body of evidence demonstrating that the building of functional connectivities and integration of complex brain functions typically associated with minimal human consciousness start early in utero and suggesting that consciousness is not an all-or-none process but rather a continuum of increasingly complex and emergent interactions within multiple neural networks.