Neural correlates of consciousness

The neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) constitute the minimal set of neuronal events and mechanisms sufficient for a specific conscious . Neuroscientists use empirical approaches to discover neural correlates of subjective phenomena. The set should be minimal because, under the assumption that the brain is sufficient to give rise to any given conscious experience, the question is which of its components is necessary to produce it.

A science of consciousness must explain the exact relationship between subjective mental states and brain states, the nature of the relationship between the conscious mind and the electro-chemical interactions in the body (mind–body problem). Progress in neuropsychology and neurophilosophy has come from focusing on the body rather than the mind. In this context the neuronal correlates of consciousness may be viewed as its causes, and consciousness may be thought of as a state-dependent property of some undefined complex, adaptive, and highly interconnected biological system.

Discovering and characterizing neural correlates does not offer a theory of consciousness that can explain how particular systems experience anything at all, or how and why they are associated with consciousness, the so-called hard problem of consciousness, but understanding the NCC may be a step toward such a theory. Most neurobiologists assume that the variables giving rise to consciousness are to be found at the neuronal level, governed by classical physics, though a few scholars have proposed theories of quantum consciousness based on quantum mechanics.

There is great apparent redundancy and parallelism in neural networks so, while activity in one group of neurons may correlate with a percept in one case, a different population might mediate a related percept if the former population is lost or inactivated. It may be that every phenomenal, subjective state has a neural correlate. Where the NCC can be induced artificially the subject will experience the associated percept, while perturbing or inactivating the region of correlation for a specific percept will affect the percept or cause it to disappear, giving a cause-effect relationship from the neural region to the nature of the percept.

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