BrainSciencePodcast-Damasio on Constructing the Conscious Brain

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CONSTRUCTING the CONSCIOUS BRAIN

Episode 90 of the Brain Science Podcast is a discussion of Self Comes To Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain by Antonio Damasio. Damasio's book focuses on the answer to two key questions: How does the brain generate the mind? and How does the brain generate consciousness? His approach is unusual because many scientists and writers treat the mind and consciousness as identical. In sharp contrast, Dr. Damasio argues that mind precedes consciousness. Besides the three traditional perspectives used to study the mind (the introspective, the behavioral, and the neurological), Damasio introduces an evolutionary perspective that entails a radical change in the way the history of conscious mind is viewed and told. He also advances a radical hypothesis regarding the origins and varieties of feelings, which is central to his framework for the biological construction of consciousness: Feelings are grounded in a near fusion of body and brain networks, and first emerge from the historically old and humble brain stem rather than from the modern cerebral cortex.

The continuing education quiz contains 30 questions and is worth 3 CE Credits; the podcast and transcript are immediately available for download along with the quiz.