Neural correlate

A neural correlate of a content of experience is any bodily component, such as an electro-neuro-biological state or the state assumed by some biophysical subsystem of the brain, whose presence necessarily and regularly correlates with such a specific content of experience.

When the full ontological consistence or build-up of the reality variably called mind, soul, psyche, or existentiality is called "consciousness" and deemed to exclusively consist in mental contents associated with and at least partly generated by the brain organ, the notion of neural correlate of consciousness is commonly employed. When it is only the sensations that are held to be produced by brain states, whether exclusively or not (e.g., when sensations are also deemed capable of being generated by the mind reacting against itself), then the notion of neural correlate of a content of experience is commonly utilized. A mid-way concept, not always clarified, is that of a neural correlate encompassing the production of every mental content but not of consciousness itself.

The notion of a neural correlate of a mental state is an important concept for materialists, those philosophers and researchers who believe that all mental states are equivalent to brain states. According to strict materialists, all properties credited to the mind, including consciousness, emotion, beliefs, and desires have direct neural correlates. This is also a pragmatic view adopted by a number of scholars. This view frequently depends on considering minds exclusively as sentient knots in nature's causal net.

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