Video created for the Cognitive Sciences Forum – PARIS 2013 – Cognivence Association.
Through this short animation, we attempt to explain the conditions of consciousness and its altered states. Consciousness requires the simultaneous activity of two “things” to be effective.
To be conscious, both cortical functions must be activated, and so must the state of wakefulness.
Deactivate wakefulness, and you become unconscious, in sleep.
Make cortical functions inefficient but keep wakefulness active: this is a vegetative state.
Deactivate both: this is brain death.
