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At Science Daily, the Allen Brain Institute reports the results of a multi-year study that began in 2019 where 256 individuals’ brains were scanned in the hope of probing the origin of consciousness. The study was testing Integrated Information Theory (IIT) against Global Workspace Theory (GWT).

The competition between these two theories (COGITATE) has received considerable publicity over the last few years. We’ve covered it over the years, here and here, for example.

What Is the Difference Between the Two Theories?

Neuroscientist Anil Seth offers a lay-friendly explanation at Nautilus:

Oversimplifying horribly, GNWT predicted a major involvement of regions in frontal parts of the brain — the “workspace areas” — with strong brain responses when the image (the stimulus) appeared and disappeared. IIT, on the other hand, predicted sustained activity throughout the duration of each stimulus in a different region — the so-called posterior “hot zone” toward the back of the brain. 

“Inside the Big Bet on Consciousness,” April 30, 2025

The topic is naturally difficult. As Allison Parshall acknowledges at Scientific American, quoting a researcher, “ … Unlike other phenomena studied by science, consciousness cannot be observed externally. ‘I observe your behavior. I observe your brain, if I do an intracranial EEG [electroencephalography] study. But I don’t ever observe your experience,’ says Robert Chis-Ciure, a postdoctoral researcher studying consciousness at the University of Sussex in England.”

But Which Theory Won?

The Allen Institute media release says that neither theory came out on top. As Parshall tells us,

The results challenge both theories because neither’s predictions were fully borne out by the data. For instance, GNWT predicted that electrodes in the prefrontal cortex would detect a signal when a stimulus disappeared and was removed from the mental stage of consciousness, but that was largely absent in the findings.* “The fact that you didn’t see that … is something that I think is a significant challenge,” says Seth, who wasn’t involved in the new study. IIT, on the other hand, predicted that a sustained synchrony of networks of neurons would occur at the back of the brain, which also wasn’t observed. 

“Where Does Consciousness Come From? Two Neuroscience Theories Go Head-to-Head,” April 30, 2025

What Did the Researchers Learn?

The findings, we are told, de-emphasize the role of the prefrontal cortex:

Research showed that there’s functional connection between neurons in early visual areas of the brain (the areas that process vision, which are at the back of the brain) and the frontal areas of the brain, helping us understand how our perceptions tie to our thoughts. The findings de-emphasize the importance of the prefrontal cortex in consciousness, suggesting that while it’s important for reasoning and planning, consciousness itself may be linked with sensory processing and perception. In other words, intelligence is about doing while consciousness is about being. 

“Landmark experiment sheds new light on the origins of consciousness,” April 30, 2025. Here’s the open-access paper.

That’s quite a remarkable demotion in the light of other researchers’ views on the topic. Here are some of them:

The prefrontal cortex is so important to human beings that, if deprived of it, our behaviour is reduced to action-reactions and automatisms, with no ability to make deliberate decisions. 

Levy R. The prefrontal cortex: from monkey to man. Brain. 2024 Mar 1;147(3):794-815. doi: 10.1093/brain/awad389. PMID: 37972282; PMCID: PMC10907097.

Why are we capable of doing things that are difficult, of making choices to go the hard route or the extra mile? Much of this ability can be attributed to the bulk of the frontal cortex in an area known as the prefrontal cortex (PFC). One of the last places in the brain to mature, the prefrontal cortex is thought of as the “personality center” and is the cortical region that makes us uniquely human. 

Hathaway WR, Newton BW. Neuroanatomy, Prefrontal Cortex. [Updated 2023 May 29]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2025 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499919/

The role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) takes center stage among unanswered questions in modern neuroscience. The PFC has a Janus-faced nature: it enables sophisticated cognitive and social abilities that reach their maximum expression in humans, yet it underlies some of the devastating symptoms of psychiatric disorders. 

Prefrontal Cortex Development in Health and Disease: Lessons from Rodents and Humans Chini, Mattia et al. Trends in Neurosciences, Volume 44, Issue 3, 227 – 240

So wait. Even though the prefrontal cortex is said to be the “personality center” that enables us to make decisions and have sophisticated cognitive and social abilities, its role in basic consciousness is less significant than most researchers think? Well, that certainly raises questions!

It sounds as though understanding consciousness by these means is going to be a much slower process than the researchers had hoped. On a happier note, the researchers hope to shed light on comas and vegetative states. “Identifying where consciousness comes from could help detect ‘covert consciousness’ in unresponsive patients with severe injuries — a condition known to occur in about one-quarter of cases as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine last year.”

We can also hope that the outcome to date won’t end in the kind of uproar that almost drowned out the 2023 publication of the early results. See “Consciousness Wars: Researcher Tries Negotiating a Truce” after Integrated Information Theory (IIT) was attacked — charged with “pseudoscience” — in an influential letter signed by a number of prominent neuroscientists.

Cross-posted at Mind Matters News.