Plenary session "“A critical review of current theories and research on consciousness"

Cees van Leeuwen’s keynote on “A critical review of current theories and research on consciousness” addresses one of the most fundamental and rapidly evolving questions in contemporary science: how conscious experience arises from brain activity.

In recent years, the field has seen a proliferation of competing theoretical frameworks—ranging from global workspace and integrated information theories to dynamical and predictive processing approaches—accompanied by advances in brain imaging and computational modeling that promise increasingly precise investigation of the neural correlates of consciousness. At the same time, growing interactions with physics-inspired methods and computational neuroscience are reshaping how researchers conceptualize brain dynamics and information processing. This talk will provide a critical synthesis of these developments, evaluating the strengths and limitations of current theories, highlighting key empirical findings, and outlining promising directions for future research, with particular attention to the role of neural dynamics, large-scale brain networks, and interdisciplinary approaches bridging neuroscience, physics, and computation.