What is it like to be a blob? A distributed, decentred and context-sensitive neurobiology of consciousness
- 1University College London
Abstract
Consciousness is often studied by asking whether particular brain regions or systems are privileged. We tested a distributed, decentred and context-sensitive alternative using 579 consciousness-focused neuroimaging studies. Semantic clustering of titles and abstracts identified seven domains whose corrected meta-analytic maps showed limited overlap and no invariant cross-domain core. These maps occupied 18.0% of grey matter while extending across 91.0% of brain regions. After controlling for reporting topography, distributed cognitive, sensorimotor and organismic-affective maps reconstructed the residual consciousness landscape better than spatial surrogates. Organismic-affective maps contributed most, but functional contributions varied contextually across domains. Theory-associated regional loci added no additional meaningful prediction. Information carried by the functional families was both redundant and synergistic. Coactivation-network and hypergraph analyses revealed a shared network repertoire but context-dependent higher-order coalitions. These results argue against an invariant core, supporting a distributed neurobiology of consciousness in which specialised systems are weighted and combined differently across contexts.
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BibTeX
@misc{skipper2026what,
title = {{What is it like to be a blob? A distributed, decentred and context-sensitive neurobiology of consciousness}},
author = {J. I. Skipper and C. Timmermann and R. McAlpine and K. Jedlovszky and M. Jaglinska and G. Cooper and G. Blackburne},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.02.745341},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.745341v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - What is it like to be a blob? A distributed, decentred and context-sensitive neurobiology of consciousness
AU - J. I. Skipper
AU - C. Timmermann
AU - R. McAlpine
AU - K. Jedlovszky
AU - M. Jaglinska
AU - G. Cooper
AU - G. Blackburne
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/02
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.02.745341
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.02.745341v1
AB - Consciousness is often studied by asking whether particular brain regions or systems are privileged. We tested a distributed, decentred and context-sensitive alternative using 579 consciousness-focused neuroimaging studies. Semantic clustering of titles and abstracts identified seven domains whose corrected meta-analytic maps showed limited overlap and no invariant cross-domain core. These maps occupied 18.0% of grey matter while extending across 91.0% of brain regions. After controlling for reporting topography, distributed cognitive, sensorimotor and organismic-affective maps reconstructed the residual consciousness landscape better than spatial surrogates. Organismic-affective maps contributed most, but functional contributions varied contextually across domains. Theory-associated regional loci added no additional meaningful prediction. Information carried by the functional families was both redundant and synergistic. Coactivation-network and hypergraph analyses revealed a shared network repertoire but context-dependent higher-order coalitions. These results argue against an invariant core, supporting a distributed neurobiology of consciousness in which specialised systems are weighted and combined differently across contexts.
ER -