The cognitive neuroscience of self‐awareness: Current framework, clinical implications, and future research directions

Summary

Self-awareness is a multidimensional neurocognitive phenomenon, not a singular trait. It emerges across various levels of cognitive complexity, shaping our consciousness and brain function. Insights from psychology, cognitive science, and cognitive neuroscience reveal how self-awareness arises from intricate cognitive processes. Alterations are evident in neuropsychiatric conditions like anxiety, depression, and psychosomatic disorders, impacting overall brain function. Understanding these mechanisms is crucial for developing new approaches to treatment, offering deeper insight into human cognition and self-awareness.

Abstract

Abstract Self‐awareness, the ability to take oneself as the object of awareness, has been an enigma for our species, with different answers to this question being provided by religion, philosophy, and, more recently, science. The current review aims to discuss the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying self‐awareness. The multidimensional nature of self‐awareness will be explored, suggesting how it can be thought of as an emergent property observed in different cognitive complexity levels, within a predictive coding approach. A presentation of alterations of self‐awareness in neuropsychiatric conditions will ground a discussion on alternative frameworks to understand this phenomenon, in health and psychopathology, with future research directions being indicated to fill current gaps in the literature. This article is categorized under: Philosophy > Consciousness Psychology > Brain Function and Dysfunction Neuroscience > Cognition

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