Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience
January 3, 2014
Marie Vandekerckhove, Luis Carlo Bulnes, Jaak Panksepp
65 citations
Consciousness arises from a foundational, primitive form called anoetic consciousness—a basic, first-person flow of affective, homeostatic, and sensory-perceptual experiences. This rudimentary state underlies all learning and memory, giving rise to noetic (knowledge-based) consciousness and, eventually, autonoetic consciousness, which enables mental time travel—reflecting on past experiences and imagining future possibilities. The authors propose a multi-tiered neuroevolutionary framework linking genetically controlled primary processes (affective), secondary processes (learning and memory), and higher tertiary processes (developmentally emergent), explaining how affective experiences become cognitive and object-oriented, leading to episodic memory and self-aware awareness.
Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience
January 1, 2022
Maria Lara Porpino de Meiroz Grilo, Geovan Menezes de Sousa, Lilían Andrade Carlos de Mendonça et al.
12 citations
Repeated ayahuasca administration before and during social isolation prevented depressive-like behaviors and cortisol alterations in common marmosets. Animals given ayahuasca showed higher cortisol reactivity and fecal cortisol levels similar to family-group controls, no signs of anhedonia, and no increase in chronic stress-related behaviors, unlike isolated animals that received no intervention. The findings suggest ayahuasca promotes resilient responses and may have a prophylactic action against depression.
Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience
January 1, 2026
Dayna Forsyth, Nicoletta Faraone, Simon G. Lamarre et al.
Psilocybin reduces aggression and activity in mangrove rivulus fish, an emerging model for studying psychoactive compounds. Waterborne psilocybin treatment significantly decreased activity levels and the frequency of swimming bursts, an aggressive behavior, toward a conspecific fish from a different lineage, with modest effects on other behaviors. Considerable intraspecific variation in behavioral response occurred among these homozygous fish, suggesting the effects were largely independent of genotype. The findings add to evidence supporting psilocybin's potential as a therapeutic agent.
Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience
January 1, 2020
Thurston Lacalli
The evolution of consciousness from a pre-conscious state presents conceptual difficulties analogous to biological pattern formation, as described by Alan Turing. Just as molecular-level statistical variations can seed biological patterns, the microstructure of synaptic networks and their activity patterns can vary, with some variants serving as neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs). If NCCs must be precisely ordered to evoke specific experiences, Turing's framework helps explain how such order arises developmentally and how neural changes correlate with conscious experience. The analysis does not address the ultimate nature of consciousness but shows that once sentience emerges, evolution can elaborate and shape that experience.
Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience
January 1, 2009
Jonathan L Brigman, Jessica Ihne, Lisa M Saksida et al.
Subchronic treatment with the psychotomimetic phencyclidine (PCP) in C57BL/6J mice increased visits to a social stimulus but did not increase time spent with it, and increased visits and time spent investigating a novel social stimulus over a familiar one. The treatment did not significantly affect performance on visual discrimination or reversal learning tasks. These findings suggest the mouse subchronic PCP model may be useful for studying social withdrawal aspects of schizophrenia, but the regimen was insufficient to impair the measured cognitive/executive functions in this strain.