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HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

Front. Syst. Neurosci.
Volume 18 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2024.1426986

Unifying biophysical consciousness theories with MaxCon: maximizing configurations of brain connectivity

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Ronin Institute, Essex County, New Jersey, United States
  • 2 Achucarro Basque Center for Neuroscience, Leioa, Spain
  • 3 University of Padua, Padua, Veneto, Italy
  • 4 University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    There is such a vast proliferation of scientific theories of consciousness that it is worrying some scholars. There are even competitions to test different theories, and the results are inconclusive.Consciousness research, far from converging toward a unifying framework, is becoming more discordant than ever, especially with respect to theoretical elements that do not have a clear neurobiological basis. Rather than duelling theories, an integration across theories is needed to facilitate a comprehensive view on consciousness and on how normal nervous system dynamics can develop into pathological states. In dealing with what is considered an extremely complex matter, we try to adopt a perspective from which the subject appears in relative simplicity.Grounded in experimental and theoretical observations, we advance an encompassing biophysical theory, MaxCon, which incorporates aspects of several of the main existing neuroscientific consciousness theories, finding convergence points in an attempt to simplify and to understand how cellular collective activity is organized to fulfill the dynamic requirements of the diverse theories our proposal comprises. Moreover, a computable index indicating consciousness level is presented. Derived from the level of description of the interactions among cell networks, our proposal highlights the association of consciousness with maximisation of the number of configurations of neural network connections -constrained by neuroanatomy, biophysics and the environment-that is common to all consciousness theories.

    Keywords: Cognition, Consciousness, Macrostate, Metastability, Microstate, network connectivity, neural dynamics, Neuroscience

    Received: 02 May 2024; Accepted: 09 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Perez Velazquez, Mateos, Guevara Erra and Wennberg. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Jose Luis Perez Velazquez, Ronin Institute, Essex County, New Jersey, United States
    Richard Wennberg, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.