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Electrical stimulation of the human cortex, undertaken for brain surgery, triggers percepts and feelings. A new study documents an ordering principle to these effects: the farther removed from sensory input or motor output structures, the less likely it is that a region contributes to consciousness.

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Fig. 1: Not all cortical regions contribute equally to consciousness .

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Correspondence to Christof Koch.

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Koch, C. Hot or not. Nat Hum Behav 4, 991–992 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-0925-7

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