Neurobiology of conscious experience.

Recent research and theory suggest that conscious experience involves a modelling process. The human brain generates an internal model to fit incoming information about the external world, and experiences the model rather than the information. The modelling occurs at the level of the neocortex and may be associated with specific oscillatory field potentials. Imagining exercises the modelling system independently of sensory information. General disorders of consciousness are caused by damage to those areas of the brain that energize and direct the modelling process Specific deficits of consciousness are caused by focal lesions to sensory or motor cortex that prevent the modelling of particular input and output patterns.