Neuroscience: Is Consciousness Research Avoiding Mental Health?

There is a recent article inScience, ‘Adversarial’ search for neural basis of consciousness yields first results, discussing experiments on two major theories of consciousness, global neuronal workspace theory, GNWT, and integrated information theory, IIT stating that:

"GNWT predicts that the frontal networks supporting both active and passive perception should be similar enough to allow the decoder to cross train. That is, if it’s been trained only on signals related to the task of passively observing a face, it should still be able to decode data from the task of pressing a button in response to a face.

IIT predicts that cross-training will only work well with brain signals from the posterior regions, the proposed site of conscious perception. The results were surprisingly mixed. When it came to decoding different categories of objects, the data provided strong support for GNWT. But when it came to decoding the orientation of faces, IIT was the better fit."

The purpose is to explore both theories, but the real-world application that both would have defined, mental health and illness, seems skipped. The mental health crisis is a problem the world faces in part because the way the mind works, even conceptually, is not available.

The mind is where anxiety is, and so is depression, hallucination, delusion, mood, interest, and every possible experience. But how do the relays of mind make determinations for states?

How can the available theories of consciousness be plugged directly into some mental health problems, including addictions, so that possibilities are sought? It is often stated that consciousness is not attention, among others.

However, it is mostly agreed that consciousness arises by neurons as well as several other processes not called consciousness. So how do neurons decide? What differences do they possess for consciousness and others?

What Is Consciousness?

Is consciousness just an output, or a label like intelligence, emotions, feelings, and others, but the mechanism with which the mind decides is similar for all?

What parts of the available theories of consciousness can be quickly applied to problems of mental health, to at least have a better path to care?

It is postulated that the human mind is the collection of all electrical and chemical impulses of neurons. Or, impulses as a group are what the mind is. The components of the mind are both impulses, with features, that as a group, determine what is known, including all experiences.

It can be said that the mechanism of consciousness is the interaction of the components of the mind. It is this interaction that decides all that is labeled for mental health problems and illnesses.

How can this be displayed to at least show or learn what might be happening, to boost care for some psychiatric conditions?

Mental health is working evidence for any consciousness theory that needs to be tested.

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