New study network cores of the brain with strong bidirectional connections

Science may be one step closer to understanding where consciousness resides in the brain. A new study shows the importance of certain types of neural connections in identifying consciousness. The research, published in Cerebral Cortex, was led by Jun Kitazono, a corresponding author and a project researcher in the Department of General Systems Studies at the University of Tokyo. When we see something or experience a sensation, our brains take in information. This is called a feed-forward signal, but receiving such feed-forward signals is not enough for consciousness. Our brains also need to send information back, in what is called feedback. Not every part of the brain can both receive feed-forward and return feedback information. Researchers hypothesized that these bidirectional connections are an essential hallmark of the parts of the brain responsible for consciousness.