Modelling developments in consciousness within a multidimensional framework.
Neuroscience of consciousness January 1, 2024 DOI: 10.1093/nc/niae026 via PubMed
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractA multidimensional framework for studying consciousness has recently been introduced, allowing finer distinctions among global states such as psychedelic states, disorders of consciousness, and animal consciousness. This paper expands the model by adding temporal profiles, which capture how consciousness changes over an organism's life cycle and how disorders of consciousness progress over time. The expansion enables new comparisons across developmental stages and across species, and it highlights the need for greater attention to fluctuations in patients with disorders of consciousness.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Disorders of consciousness Multidimensional models Temporal profiles |
| Citations | 1 |
| Key finding | Adding temporal profiles to the multidimensional model of consciousness enables modeling of changes across life cycles and disorder progression, facilitating cross-developmental and cross-species comparisons and emphasizing fluctuations in patients with disorders of consciousness. |
Abstract
A recent advancement in consciousness science has been the introduction of a multidimensional framework of consciousness. This framework has been applied to global states of consciousness, including psychedelic states and disorders of consciousness, and the consciousness of non-human animals. The multidimensional framework enables a finer parsing of both various states of consciousness and forms of animal consciousness, paving the way for new scientific investigations into consciousness. In this paper, the multidimensional model is expanded by constructing temporal profiles. This expansion allows for the modelling of changes in consciousness across the life cycles of organisms and the progression over time of disorders of consciousness. The result of this expansion is 2-fold: (i) it enables new modes of comparison, both across stages of development and across species; (ii) it proposes that more attention be given to the various types of fluctuations that occur in patients who are suffering from disorders of consciousness.