Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
December 15, 2017
Tom B. Mole, Julieta Galante, Iona C. Walker et al.
6 citations
A smartphone app called The MindfulBreather uses built-in gyroscope and touchscreen sensors to provide real-time feedback on breath-awareness during meditation, without requiring external hardware. The app guides users to place the phone on their abdomen and tap at the peak of inhalation; the gyroscope detects breathing-related tilts and generates waveforms. Tapping patterns are analyzed to determine psychobiological synchronization. The app then provides pleasant sounds for correctly timed breaths and records mindful breaths. The paper outlines the technological concept only; future studies will evaluate efficacy, validity, and reliability.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
March 12, 2026
Chirapat Ukachoke
1 citation
Consciousness may be a form of neural information—specifically, information encoded in the spatiotemporal patterns of electrochemical signaling within certain neural circuits. This hypothesis is derived by analyzing the essential properties of consciousness and evaluating candidate non-material entities in the brain, such as electrical fields, magnetic fields, electromagnetic waves, and neural information. Neural information most parsimoniously meets the required criteria without invoking new forces or physical laws. The hypothesis generates empirically verifiable predictions, making it falsifiable. It also proposes neural mechanisms for how some information manifests phenomenally as consciousness and why this occurs only from a first-person perspective. The framework is grounded entirely in established neuroscience.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
July 17, 2026
Haruki Emori, Andrei Khrennikov, Atsushi Iriki
Cognitive neuroscience has accumulated robust findings that systematically resist explanation within classical probabilistic and causal frameworks, including order effects in judgment, multi-path motor preparation, perceptual binding, attentional selection, and the recursive construction of self and time. The authors argue these are signatures of a deeper, non-commutative architecture of cognition and brain dynamics. They propose quantum probability theory together with contextual probability theory as rigorous translational languages for cognitive processes, where observation actively transforms underlying state spaces. The framework suggests neural network dynamics are intrinsically organized to generate quantum-like representations, with structural primitives mapping onto specific brain activities. They outline a new sub-domain called Cognitive Structural Science and a research program combining human-macaque experiments with quantum-computer simulation.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
July 9, 2026
Igor Pivovarov
A new framework, TEVSER (Theory of Evolving Self-Representations), proposes that living systems maintain homeostasis through a hierarchy of self-representations that serve as control structures guiding behavior. Within this hierarchy, distinct functional levels correspond to qualitatively different forms of cognition, including the emergence of a phenomenological internal world, spatial subjectivity, temporal presence, behavioral intelligence, self-consciousness, and abstract symbolic intellect. Consciousness is treated as a structured and graded property arising from the organization of self-representing systems, offering a constructive approach to the hard problem of consciousness. The framework integrates predictive coding, active inference, higher-order theories, and integrated information theory within a unified architecture and generates testable hypotheses linking levels of self-representation to neural organization, behavior, and evolutionary complexity.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 18, 2026
Chirapat Ukachoke
Qualia and consciousness are not inert but influence neural and behavioral events through a non-mechanistic, information-based causal role. Events before or concurrent with the emergence of a pain quale are unaffected by it, while activities that explicitly involve phenomenal content—such as experiencing or reporting the quale—are influenced by its occurrence and character. This influence does not rely on particle-force interactions but operates as higher-level factors in stable, constitutive counterfactual relations to downstream effects. Qualia provide phenomenal information necessary for initiating and structuring neural causal chains and determining output content, though they require intact neural circuits to implement mechanistic processing. Thus, qualia and consciousness are causally efficacious in a restricted, information-based sense.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 5, 2023
Elizabeth Krasnoff, Gaétan Chevalier
Inaudible binaural beats (BB) objectively induce a relaxed state, as measured by brain wave activity. EEG readings showed increases in positive outlook and a relaxing brain across several scores, including F3/F4 Alpha Assessment and CZ Theta Beta, along with scalp topography maps. Most subjects also showed improvement in microcirculation or cardiovascular scores, though Menlascan and Big Five character assessment results were less conclusive. Since the beats were inaudible, the effects could not be attributed to the placebo effect. These results warrant further research with more subjects and different frequencies of BB and music tracks.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
January 24, 2023
Eric Bond
A new hypothesis proposes that consciousness arises from 'coherence fields'—synchronously resonating structures of light and atoms at the nanoscale, forming the fundamental unit of first-person percepts like colors, sounds, and thoughts. The theory builds on quantum biology and neuroscience, suggesting that electrical impulses in neurons are driven by quantum-scale coherence, and that local field potential oscillations in the brain's electric field may be modulated by these fields. Temperature variation in neural tissue is posited as a signature of coherence field modulation, not merely waste heat, with infrared photonic waves acting as an interstitial medium. The author outlines possible routes to modulate coherence fields via electric currents, electromagnetic fields, radiation, and entanglement, and suggests that if validated, this could resolve the mind/body problem.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
May 11, 2022
Irem Duman, Isabell Sophia Ehmann, Alicia Ronnie Gonsalves et al.
In consciousness research, participants are typically asked to report what they consciously experience, but this may conflate the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) with attention or metacognition. To avoid this, researchers have adopted no-report paradigms, which rely on comparing conditions with and without report. However, analysis of several such comparisons reveals alternative interpretations and methodological issues beyond the earlier criticism that merely removing report does not prevent metacognitive reflection. Without a task, the conscious mind tends to turn inward, switching between external stimuli and daydreaming or mind-wandering. Thus, no-report paradigms may instead capture the neural correlates of conscious disengagement, reaffirming that they are no less problematic than report paradigms.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
June 22, 2021
Michaela Rohr, Dirk Wentura
Whether emotional information can be processed without conscious awareness has been debated since psychology began. Many studies have used the masked sequential priming paradigm, where a briefly presented prime is followed by a mask to prevent conscious perception, and participants categorize target stimuli by valence. Faster responses when prime and target share the same valence suggest non-conscious processing. This review examines three questions: the methods used to establish non-conscious processing, evidence for non-conscious extraction of evaluative information, and evidence for non-conscious processing beyond simple positive/negative discrimination, such as emotion-specific features. The review highlights current debates and future directions for the field.
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
February 16, 2018
Hyoungkyu Kim, A. Hudetz, Joseph Lee et al.
A practical method estimates integrated information (Φ), a measure proposed by integrated information theory to be related to consciousness, from 128-channel EEG. The method alone cannot distinguish certain anesthetic states, but combining Φ with four EEG connectivity parameters—power, frequency, functional connectivity, and modularity—differentiates all states of consciousness. The association of Φ with EEG connectivity during anesthesia offers a new approach to applying the theory, potentially useful for characterizing consciousness in sleep, anesthesia, and coma.