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🧠 Your Brain May Have a Much Older Secret Behind Consciousness What if the feeling of being alive, aware, and experiencing the world doesn't actually begin in the part of the brain scientists have studied for decades? A fascinating new neuroscience theory suggests that the brainstem, one of the oldest parts of the human brain, may play a much bigger role in consciousness than previously believed. Traditionally, scientists have focused on the cerebral cortex, the brain's wrinkled outer layer, as the main source of conscious experience. It helps us understand what we see, hear, remember, and think. But neuroscientists Marshall Devor and Mark Baron propose something different: the brainstem may provide the basic feeling of being conscious, while the cerebral cortex fills that experience with thoughts, memories, and sensory information. One intriguing clue comes from pain. Your nervous system can detect danger and trigger your hand to pull away from a hot surface before you consciously experience the pain. The researchers argue that detecting pain and actually feeling it may involve different brain mechanisms. Even more fascinating, some children born without much of their cerebral hemispheres have shown responses suggesting a degree of awareness. Some animals with their cerebral cortex removed have also displayed surprisingly complex behaviours. Could consciousness have evolved much earlier than scientists once imagined? The theory is not yet proven, and researchers cannot establish subjective awareness simply by observing behaviour. However, it raises an extraordinary possibility: the roots of consciousness may be much older and more widespread across the animal kingdom than previously thought. source: Devor, M., & Baron, M. (2026). Brainstem theory of consciousness. The Neuroscientist.