The Search for Where Consciousness Lives in the Brain
Nautilus | Science Connected • • science
Key Points:
- Neuroscientist Christof Koch lost a 1998 bet with philosopher David Chalmers about discovering the neural correlates of consciousness within 25 years, highlighting the ongoing challenge of solving the "hard problem" of how brain activity produces conscious experience.
- Researchers from MIT propose using transcranial focused ultrasound, a noninvasive technology that can precisely stimulate small, deep brain areas, to investigate the neural basis of consciousness by enabling cause-and-effect studies previously impossible with other brain-monitoring methods.
- Unlike existing brain stimulation techniques that affect large brain regions, focused ultrasound offers high spatial resolution targeting of subcortical structures, allowing safer and more precise modulation of brain activity without surgical intervention.
- The MIT team aims to address fundamental
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