Human consciousness: Where is it in the brain

(Photo: Getty Images) ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Download a free worksheet! ______________________________________________________________________________________________________ The story Consciousness is everything a person experiences – someone's awareness of their thoughts, feelings, sensations, memories. But where does this happen in the brain? Scientists haven’t yet agreed on an explanation, but recently, two leading theories were put to the test in a large, research project. The two theories that were put against each other were very different. For example, for one of them, the front part of the brain is not considered necessary for consciousness. Whereas the other theory argues that consciousness comes from what they call ‘global broadcasting’ across the brain, which does include the front regions. Both theories made some accurate predictions about what was happening in the brain, but some of the predictions were wrong. “Both theories are incomplete,” said Dr. Ferrante, one of the neuroscientists working on the project. News headlines Two Theories Face Off to Explain the Origins of Consciousness Scientific American Two Theories of Consciousness Faced Off. The Ref Took a Beating. The New York Times Landmark study puts leading theories of consciousness to the test— neither comes out unscathed University of Birmingham Key words and phrases face off meet to argue or compete  take a beating suffer some damage unscathed undamaged Next  Learn more English vocabulary from the news with our News Review archive. Try our podcast Learning English for Work.