Editor's Summary
15 March 2007
It makes you think
In a Connections essay, György Buzsáki outlines a theory to explain how the brain's neuronal circuits support its cognitive capacities. In this model, environmental inputs are seen as perturbations of ongoing spontaneous neuronal activity in the cerebral cortex. If an event perturbs this activity for a sufficiently long time in a big enough population of neurons, it is noticed. That is, we become conscious of it. But the locally organized cerebellar cortex, used largely for sensorimotor integration, does not generate spontaneous activity, and its response to input is local and non-persistent. We remain unaware of such local computations.
Essay: The structure of consciousness
Subjective awareness may depend on neural networks in the brain supporting complex wiring schemes and dynamic patterns of activity.
György Buzsáki
doi:10.1038/446267a