Neuroscience of Consciousness最新文献

{"title":"A Rosetta Stone hypothesis for neurophenomenology: mathematical predictions from predictive processing.","authors":"Lancelot Da Costa, Anil K Seth, Karl Friston, Maxwell J D Ramstead, Lars Sandved-Smith","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag026","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag026","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Consciousness science faces the challenge of bridging first-person experience with third-person empirical measurements. Neurophenomenology aims to build such 'generative passages' connecting the content of experience with behavioural and neuroscientific data. However, the mathematical machinery for such bridges remains underdeveloped. Here we develop a Rosetta Stone hypothesis from predictive processing, where beliefs serve as a central hub connecting phenomenology, behaviour, and neural dynamics. This hinges on a central technical assumption that phenomenology is a function of beliefs. We pursue a conditional approach: if this assumption holds, then certain predictions mathematically follow. We derive predictions for subjective similarity judgements, cognitive metabolic cost, subjective cognitive effort, and time perception. We review the connection between beliefs and neural dynamics to complete the generative passage for neurophenomenology, omitting the connection between beliefs and behaviour as this is already well-documented elsewhere. Testing our predictions will inform the validity of the central assumption connecting beliefs and phenomenology, and advance the neurophenomenology research programme.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag026"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13387462/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148550903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Bridging dream and wake states: a new tool for consciousness research.","authors":"Zeynep Temel Başer, Gülsüm Uzer, Hansa Şentürk, Ali Yalçınkaya, Tuba İkbal Yayla, Merve Dikmen, Halil Aziz Velioğlu, Erol Yıldırım, Lütfü Hanoğlu","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag038","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag038","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In this study, the Consciousness States Comparison Scale: REM Version (CSCS-REM) was developed as a self-report instrument to assess dream consciousness during REM sleep in comparison with waking consciousness. Existing instruments capture only limited aspects of phenomenology and provide few opportunities for systematic cross-state evaluation. By anchoring waking consciousness as a reference point, the CSCS-REM quantifies relative differences in phenomenological experience and serves as a tool for empirically testing the predictions of the continuity and discontinuity hypotheses in consciousness research. The item pool was derived from a systematic review, expert evaluations, and preliminary studies, with content validity ensured through expert panels. After pilot testing, the 63-item draft was administered online, and data from 432 participants were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis. The final version consisted of 35 items across eight subscales: Metacognitive Awareness, Cognitive Fluency, Memory, Temporal Awareness, Spatial Awareness, Emotional Awareness, Perceptual and Bodily Senses, and Interoceptive and Chemical Senses. This structure accounted for 56.04% of the variance, with Cronbach's α ranging from .736 to .915 and McDonald's ω from .639 to .901. Confirmatory factor analysis in an independent sample (<i>n</i> = 211) demonstrated excellent fit indices (Comparative Fit Index = .986, Tucker-Lewis Index = .984, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = .059). Subscales of the CSCS-REM showed small to moderate, yet significant, correlations with the Bodily Self-Consciousness in Dreams Questionnaire and the Dream Reflective Awareness Questionnaire, supporting convergent validity. In conclusion, while subject to some limitations, the CSCS-REM is a psychometrically reliable and valid instrument that enables systematic comparison of REM dream consciousness and waking consciousness across shared phenomenological dimensions.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag038"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13371965/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148457489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The experiential self state as affective salience: a dual-self states framework for consciousness and self-transcendence.","authors":"Valerie van Mulukom","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag033","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag033","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article proposes a dual-self states framework in which reflective and experiential modes of consciousness are understood as dynamic configurations along a processing continuum. The reflective/experiential self-state corresponds to narrative, denotational, and self-referential consciousness underpinned by default mode network activity. The experiential self state is characterized as an affective-salience mode of perspectival awareness, anchored in salience network hubs (particularly the anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex), which integrate interoceptive and exteroceptive signals into a coherent, non-propositional sense of being-here-as-subject, accompanied by sustained, non-reflective meta-awareness. Within a predictive processing framework, the experiential self state corresponds to a configuration in which the precision-weighting of high-level self-referential priors is reduced and a broader range of affective and bodily signals shapes conscious experience, a shift governed by dopaminergic, noradrenergic, and serotonergic mechanisms. This characterization carries direct implications for individual differences in traits such as mindfulness and absorption, and for conditions involving dysregulated salience processing. The framework further proposes that self-transcendent experiences, including absorption, meditation, awe, and mystical or religious experience, are best understood as expressions of the experiential self state, and serve as theoretical and empirical testing grounds for the framework's core claims.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag033"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13371966/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148457472","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Micro-phenomenology of immersion and perceived presences under DMT.","authors":"James W Sanders, Raphaël Millière, Ema Demšar, Zachary G Daily, David Erritzoe, Robin Carhart-Harris, Christopher Timmermann","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag015","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag015","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Psychedelic compound N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is renowned for inducing highly immersive experiences, often including encounters with seemingly sentient presences. While such phenomena are well documented, immersion under psychedelics remains conceptually underdefined and phenomenologically underexplored. Here we apply micro-phenomenology to characterize immersion under DMT as a structured continuum from subtle to gross forms of immersion, and to examine how perceived presences arise within this continuum. Twenty-three participants received 20 mg intravenous DMT during simultaneous fMRI-EEG acquisition, followed by detailed micro-phenomenological interviews focused on the temporal unfolding of experience. Micro-phenomenological analysis methods yielded 125 phenomenological categories describing structural dimensions, including sensory and amodal faculties, spatial organisation, self-world configuration, and modes of social relatedness. Dynamic analysis revealed reliable developmental patterns, with bodily effects typically preceding visual and auditory ones, and perceived presences emerging only after multisensory integration and 3D spatial characteristics had developed, illustrating a hierarchical relationship between subtle and gross forms of immersion. Perceived presences varied widely in sensory modality, semantic complexity, and relational mode. These findings show immersion under DMT as a dynamic, constructive process, providing precise structural features for future neurophenomenological modelling, and supporting the view that DMT research may inform our understanding of immersive experience across other aetiologies, including ordinary experience of the world.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag015"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13366535/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148450412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Views on the distribution of consciousness influence ethical judgements toward brain organoids as biological computers: an exploratory study.","authors":"Jonathan Lomax Boyd, Eric Allen Jensen, Aaron Michael Jensen, Nethanel Lipshitz","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag023","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag023","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Biological computers, or 'biocomputers', are being engineered with brain organoids integrated with <i>in silico</i> hardware and software components. This technology promises to advance our mechanistic understanding of cognitive processes by embodying <i>in vitro</i> neural systems within virtual learning environments. Yet, biocomputers raise ethical and moral questions, such as whether evidence of consciousness indicates that embodied neural systems have moral status. To better understand the relationship between signs of consciousness and ethical concerns, we conducted an exploratory study to investigate public views toward biocomputers. We examined whether the public's tendency to attribute consciousness to human and non-human entities guides moral reasoning about biocomputers. We discovered a latent structure underlying public views on the distribution of consciousness. Specifically, we identified three cluster groups, characterized by opinions on the scope of consciousness. These cluster groups were highly predictive of views toward the cognitive capacities and moral status of biocomputers. Respondents in our sample exhibited strong support for research on and creation of biocomputers, and for some, support increased as biocomputers were perceived to be more conscious-a relationship that appears to conflict with conventional reasoning in moral philosophy. Future studies will help determine the prevalence of these views among stakeholders and demographically representative publics at local, national, and global scales whose ethical judgements will inform regulation, oversight, and governance of engineered neural systems.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag023"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13344105/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148413797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Neurodynamic profiles in the alpha band distinguish different forms of meditation.","authors":"Bianca Ventura, Andrea Buccellato, Saketh Malipeddi, Rahul Venugopal, Ravindra P Nagendra, Bindu M Kutty, Georg Northoff","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag036","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag036","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Different forms of meditation, like Vipassana and Shoonya, require distinct attentional features. For instance, Vipassana, which involves systematically scanning different body parts, may demand a sustained yet dynamic focus with a temporally stable and regular attentional emphasis. In contrast, Shoonya meditation has been described as involving a non-directed or defocused attentional stance, likely with a temporally variable and irregular attentional flow. We used electroencephalography (EEG) to examine whether these differences could correspond to distinct neurodynamic patterns in the alpha band. We measured two time-resolved dynamic measures including phase-based Peak Frequency Sliding (PFS), indexing fine-grained millisecond temporal resolution, and Power Sliding (PS), indexing oscillatory amplitude. Beyond mean values, we additionally quantified the temporal dynamics of PFS and PS using coefficient of variation (CV) as an index of variability, and permutation entropy (PE) as a measure of temporal irregularity. While mean differences between the two practices were observed only for PS (and not PFS), their dynamic variants more robustly distinguished the two practices. Specifically, Vipassana exhibited lower CV and PE in both PFS and PS compared to Shoonya. These findings indicate that the two practices differ more strongly in the temporal-dynamic organization of alpha-band activity than in their static averaged measures. More broadly, they support the view that dynamic features such as variability and temporal irregularity may be shared by both brain and experience, as their \"common currency,\" during different contemplative practices.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag036"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13338902/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148407056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A data-driven approach to identifying and evaluating connectivity-based neural correlates of conscious visual perception.","authors":"Annie G Bryant, Christopher J Whyte","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag029","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag029","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Identifying the neural correlates of conscious visual perception remains a major challenge in neuroscience, requiring theories that bridge between subjective experience and measurable neural correlates. However, theoretical interpretation of empirical evidence is often <i>post hoc</i> and susceptible to confirmation bias. Building upon the adversarial collaboration mediated by the COGITATE Consortium, we present a generalizable approach for the data-driven identification, evaluation, and theoretical modeling of connectivity-based neural correlates of conscious visual perception. Using the same magnetoencephalography (MEG) dataset and accompanying pre-registered hypotheses from the COGITATE Consortium, we systematically compared 246 functional connectivity (FC) measures between regions predicted to underlie conscious vision by Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and/or Global Neuronal Workspace Theory (GNWT). We identified a family of FC measures based on the barycenter-tracking the 'center of mass' between two signals-as the top-performing stimulus decoding measures that generalize across regions central to predictions of both IIT and GNWT. To interpret these findings within a theoretical framework, we developed neural mass models that recapitulate the neural dynamics hypothesized to underlie conscious perception by each theory. Comparing simulated barycenter values from these models against empirically measured MEG data revealed that both the GNWT-based model, featuring delayed ignition dynamics, and the IIT-based model, which relied on synchronous sensory dynamics, captured the observed connectivity patterns. These results lend tentative support to GNWT, as the presence of ignition dynamics independent of task-demand conditions contradicts the predictions of IIT. Beyond dataset-specific conclusions and limitations, we introduce a framework for systematically identifying and testing candidate neural correlates of conscious visual perception in an unbiased and interpretable manner.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag029"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13338905/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148407065","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Trial-wise awareness ratings do not capture the dynamics of masked priming.","authors":"Alexander Berger, Michaela Rohr, Dirk Wentura, Markus Kiefer","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag034","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag034","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Trial-wise subjective awareness ratings, particularly the Perceptual Awareness Scale (PAS), have been widely recommended for assessing awareness in masked priming research. Central to this approach is the assumption that awareness may fluctuate across trials, so trial-wise ratings should be used to separate conscious from unconscious processing. Here, we asked whether such changes in PAS-ratings are associated with corresponding changes in priming by reanalyzing data from three masked priming experiments examining evaluative response priming and semantic priming, each including samples with and without trial-wise PAS-ratings. Using effect course analysis, we traced the development of PAS-ratings and priming effects during the experimental session. Across experiments, PAS-ratings systematically increased with practice, including in catch trials in which no prime was presented. Critically, these changes in PAS-ratings were not accompanied by corresponding changes in priming effects, and individual changes in PAS-ratings and priming effects were uncorrelated. Moreover, priming exhibited qualitatively different time courses in samples with <i>versus</i> without PAS-ratings, suggesting that trial-wise awareness ratings alter priming dynamics. These findings challenge the selection of trials according to PAS-ratings to separate conscious from unconscious processing and raise methodological concerns about the use of PAS in masked priming research.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag034"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13336397/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148438721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Perceptual learning without feedback is accompanied with systematic changes in confidence processing.","authors":"Nadia Hosseinizaveh, Pascal Mamassian","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag035","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag035","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Perceptual learning can occur without external feedback, raising questions about what internal signals might guide this learning. Here, we test the hypothesis that confidence, namely the observer's subjective sense of decision accuracy, is this internal teaching signal. In the present study, participants performed a visual motion discrimination task across 5 days without feedback. After every two trials, they indicated which decision they were more confident in, using a confidence forced-choice paradigm. In addition, following previous literature, we attempted to manipulate confidence independently of accuracy by varying dot density while holding signal-to-noise ratio constant (overall-strength manipulation), however, this manipulation did not consistently separate confidence from performance. In our study without feedback, we found that some participants improved their performance in the visual task, but other participants failed to become better. Those participants who improved their perceptual thresholds over time (\"learners\") also exhibited systematic changes in their confidence computations: not only sensory noise decreased, but confidence efficiency declined due to increases in confidence-specific noise. Learners also showed an increased reliance on additional evidence not used in the perceptual decision itself (confidence boost). Non-learners showed no comparable changes. These results suggest that confidence judgments evolve during perceptual learning and may serve as an index of how internal monitoring adapts during feedback-free training.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag035"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13326646/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148377844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"I sync, therefore I am: brain-body synchrony in typical and disordered consciousness.","authors":"Asa Young, Marissa Ericson, Jonathan W Schooler","doi":"10.1093/nc/niag028","DOIUrl":"10.1093/nc/niag028","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Consciousness is often treated as a property of the brain alone, yet accumulating evidence suggests that it is shaped by a recurrent dialogue between the brain and body. In this review, we discuss how cognition associated with consciousness-processes that define the observer, their observations, and arising qualia-depend on structured rhythmic correspondences between bodily rhythms and brain signals. We first review how cardiac, respiratory, and gastric rhythms modulate neuroelectric and neurovascular fluctuations in support of interoception-perception of the bodily state-and functionally related faculties such as emotion and selfhood, which draw upon interoceptive representations. We then discuss how clinical and subclinical conditions are associated with dysrhythmia in underlying bodily rhythms and atypical increases or decreases in a bodily rhythm's modulation of brain processes. Across bodily systems, an emergent pattern suggests both an optimal window of brain-body synchrony, beyond which adverse effects are likely to occur, and that non-clinical, stress-related increases in brain-body synchrony may promote the utility of bodily rhythms for coordinating disparate entrained cognitive systems to facilitate functions such as multisensory integration. We conclude that these converging lines of research support a categorical difference between an embodied agent and the proverbial brain-in-a-vat because disturbing bodily rhythms or their coupling to the brain alters phenomenological experience-at times to such a degree as to warrant labeling the resulting states as meeting clinical criteria.</p>","PeriodicalId":52242,"journal":{"name":"Neuroscience of Consciousness","volume":"2026 1","pages":"niag028"},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13310093/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148347401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}