Subjective experience is multifaceted, making it hard for traditional neuroscientific theories of consciousness to be compared because each focuses on different aspects like perceptual awareness or global states. This work instead starts from active inference, a first-principles framework that models behavior as approximate Bayesian inference, and builds a minimal theory of consciousness from shared features of computational models derived under active inference. By reviewing studies that apply active inference models to consciousness, the authors identify a small set of theoretical commitments implicit in these models, pointing toward a minimal and testable theory of consciousness.
Ketamine alters brain oscillations, increasing high-frequency gamma waves and reducing low-frequency alpha and theta waves. A thalamo-cortical model better explained these changes than a cortex-only model. The model showed that ketamine increases specific synaptic connections: from superficial pyramidal cells to inhibitory interneurons via AMPA and NMDA receptors, and within-layer-5 pyramidal cell gain control via GABA-A and NMDA receptors. Receptor time-constants remained unchanged. These findings support using generative models to understand oscillatory data and provide computational evidence that ketamine alters local neural coupling through multiple neurotransmitter systems.