Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37711313›Full record

ReviewNeuroscience of consciousness2023

The evolutionary origins of the Global Neuronal Workspace in vertebrates.

Oryan Zacks, Eva Jablonka

Open access · goldAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Neuroscience of consciousness, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
7.7field-weighted citation impact, top 2% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed, 44 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Article
  2. Consciousness: its goals, its functions and the emergence of a new category of selection.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  3. Conscious birds.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025
    Review
  4. Review
  5. Review
  6. Article
  7. Mental causation: an evolutionary perspective.Frontiers in psychology · 2024
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.

Oryan ZacksThe Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 6934525, Israel.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4515-8349
Eva JablonkaThe Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas, Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 6934525, Israel.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4549-8063
Tel Aviv University · IL

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The Global Neuronal Workspace theory of consciousness offers an explicit functional architecture that relates consciousness to cognitive abilities such as perception, attention, memory, and evaluation. We show that the functional architecture of the Global Neuronal Workspace, which is based mainly on human studies, corresponds to the cognitive-affective architecture proposed by the Unlimited Associative Learning theory that describes minimal consciousness. However, we suggest that when applied to basal vertebrates, both models require important modifications to accommodate what has been learned about the evolution of the vertebrate brain. Most importantly, comparative studies suggest that in basal vertebrates, the Global Neuronal Workspace is instantiated by the event memory system found in the hippocampal homolog. This proposal has testable predictions and implications for understanding hippocampal and cortical functions, the evolutionary relations between memory and consciousness, and the evolution of unified perception.

Indexed as

animal consciousnessevent memoryfish neuroanatomyhippocampusminimal consciousnessminimal GNWUnlimited Associative Learning

Identifiers

PMID37711313
PMCPMC10499063
OpenAlexW4386710799

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.