Introducing the brain: is there consciousness in fetus (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, October 29, 2024, 19:01 (2 days ago) @ David Turell

There is evidence in the third trimester:

https://psyche.co/ideas/when-does-the-first-spark-of-human-consciousness-ignite?utm_sou...

"Maybe you don’t need much convincing that infants are conscious – that there is something it’s like to be an infant. In my experience telling people about my research, this is a commonly held intuition. And in academia, more than three-quarters of researchers surveyed at an annual conference on consciousness viewed babies as conscious, or at least probably so.

Today there is considerable evidence that infants are more than bundles of reflexes.

***

"While, again, we can’t ask newborns about their experiences, scientific workarounds have yielded evidence that newborns are already experiencing sights, sounds and other sensations. These clues include data on their brain networks as well as neural responses to unexpected beeps. my colleagues measured these neural responses in newborns using a technology called magnetoencephalography (MEG). A MEG machine can detect biomagnetic fields in a developing brain that are billions of times weaker than the magnetic field that guides a compass. To avoid drowning out this feeble signal, no loudspeakers are used near the MEG machine; instead, patterns of sounds are played for the newborn through a vibrating balloon. Consistent with studies in older infants, sequences of beeps that break an established pattern show a larger response from the neonatal brain than beeps that follow the pattern – suggesting a mind that can remember, learn, predict and, just perhaps, feel surprise.

***

"If you don’t believe that prior beliefs about reality shape your consciousness, consider the ‘McGurk effect’, in which the same speech sound (eg, ‘ba’ or ‘fa’) is played repeatedly, with different lip movements. Your prior beliefs about which lip movements match which sounds will likely influence your perception of what the speaker is saying. There is already evidence that infants in the first year of life are susceptible to the McGurk effect, which we can infer from clues such as how long they look at a visual display.

"...the McGurk effect requires the brain to integrate signals from the ears and eyes, and this high degree of integration is also suggestive of consciousness. Along these lines, recent neuroimaging research in newborns shows a relatively high degree of brain network integration: some signature networks of the adult brain are already taking shape at the time of birth.

"Those intriguing neural responses to surprising sound patterns don’t happen only in the newborn brain. Moser and my other colleagues have observed them in late-term fetuses as well.

"The evidence for fetal consciousness is limited almost entirely to the third trimester: the final three months of pregnancy.

***

"What makes consciousness plausible in the third trimester? Around 24 to 26 weeks’ gestation, the end of the second trimester, the first nerve pathways wire up the cerebral cortex to the body and the outside world. Until this point, virtually no sensory pathways reach the fetal cortex, the largest part of the brain, identified with consciousness in adult humans.

***

"Could a fetus be conscious of anything before the third trimester, unplugged from the world and even its own body?...Recent research found that infants given spinal anaesthesia, which blocks most sensations from the body, show electrical brain activity that resembles sleep. The fetal brain, being even less mature, is even less likely than that of an infant to sustain consciousness without sensory input.

"If consciousness does emerge before 24 weeks, it is not likely consciousness as we generally know it, but rather more likely the contentless consciousness described by philosophers such as Thomas Metzinger: with no incoming sensations to divide up the passage of time or to delineate space, all is timeless, spaceless and empty. Even stranger still, given the immature integration of fetal brain networks, compared with older brains, a fetal mind might be fragmented into many parallel minds, or ‘islands of awareness’...

"Of course, any discussion of fetal consciousness remains highly speculative. Based on the evidence so far, I predict that the light of consciousness shines from sometime near birth – if not a bit earlier – until death. It’s also unlikely that consciousness emerges all at once. Yet, even if its emergence is gradual, there must be a moment when its first spark ignites, like the first photon of light radiating from a lightbulb as its analogue dial is turned upward."

Comment: a jumble of sensory signals can be imagined, but at what point does a fetus or young child become aware that he is aware, a true definition of consciousness. I can remember events when I was two years and four months old. This article assumes the appearance of consciousness depends primarily on neural/brain circuit's development. Based upon NDE reports, consciousness can separate from the brain and return to it. This means a material brain creates an immaterial consciousness which becomes a separate entity. In religious thought it is a soul which can live for eternity. At this point we have left factual knowledge and entered the realm of belief and faith..