Scientific American

Our conscious awareness may be governed by a structure deep in the brain.

Neuroscientists have observed for the first time how structures deep in the brain are activated when the brain becomes aware of its own thoughts, known as conscious perception.

In a study published in Science today, Mingsha Zhang, a neuroscientist at Beijing Normal University, focused on the thalamus. This region at the centre of the brain is involved in processing sensory information and working memory, and is thought to have a role in conscious perception.

The latest study is “one of the most elaborate and extensive investigations of the role of the thalamus in consciousness,” says Mudrik. But there is still a question about whether the task genuinely captured neural activity associated with conscious experience, or just tracked attention to a stimulus that was not necessarily consciously perceived, she says