Conscious experience---Do non-human animals experience the kind of feelings that we humans exhibit?----Scientists from all of the cognitive disciplines convened this past Summer at an international gathering at The University of Cambridge and declared that: "The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism fro experiencing affective states"...... "Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors"............. "Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness"............ "Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates"------ANOTHERWARDS, ANIMALS FEEL AND EXHIBIT EMOTIONS...............Should their not be a revised bill of rights for animals giving them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?????????????????

 

The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness

 

On this day of July 7, 2012, a prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists,neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge to reassess the neurobiological substrates of conscious

experience and related behaviors in human and non-human animals. While comparative research onthis topic is naturally hampered by the inability of non-human animals, and often humans, to clearly and readily communicate about their internal states, the following observations can be stated  unequivocally:

 

 

The field of Consciousness research is rapidly evolving. Abundant new techniques and strategiesfor human and non-human animal research have been developed. Consequently, more data isbecoming readily available, and this calls for a periodic reevaluation of previously held preconceptions in this field. Studies of non-human animals have shown that homologous brain circuits correlated with conscious experience and perception can be selectively facilitated and disrupted to assess whether they are in fact necessary for those experiences.

Moreover, in humans, new non-invasive techniques are readily available to survey the correlates of consciousness.

 
wolf pups showing affection

The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, ubcortical neural networks aroused during affective states in humans are also critically

important for generating emotional behaviors in animals. Artificial arousal of the same brain regions generates corresponding behavior and feeling states in both humans and non-human

animals. Wherever in the brain one evokes instinctual emotional behaviors in non-human animals, many of the ensuing behaviors are consistent with experienced feeling states, includin those internal states that are rewarding and punishing.

Deep brain stimulation of these systemsn humans can also generate similar affective states. Systems associated with affect are concentrated in subcortical regions where neural homologies abound. Young human and nonhuman animals without neocortices retain these brain-mind functions. Furthermore, neural  circuits supporting behavioral/electrophysiological states of attentiveness, sleep and decisionmaking appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus).

 

Mother Puma nuzzeling her kittens

 

Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case ofparallel evolution of consciousness. Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness hasbeen most dramatically observed in African grey parrots. Mammalian and avian emotional

networks and cognitive microcircuitries appear to be far more homologous than previously

thought.

Moreover, certain species of birds have been found to exhibit neural sleep patternssimilar to those of mammals, including REM sleep and, as was demonstrated in zebra finches,

neurophysiological patterns, previously thought to require a mammalian neocortex. Magpies in particular have been shown to exhibit striking similarities to humans, great apes, dolphins, and elephants in studies of mirror self-recognition.

 


In humans, the effect of certain hallucinogens appears to be associated with a disruption incortical feedforward and feedback processing. Pharmacological interventions in non-human
animals with compounds known to affect conscious behavior in humans can lead to similar

perturbations in behavior in non-human animals. In humans, there is evidence to suggest that

awareness is correlated with cortical activity, which does not exclude possible contributions by

subcortical or early cortical processing, as in visual awareness. Evidence that human and nonhuman animal emotional feelings arise from homologous subcortical brain networks provide 

compelling evidence for evolutionarily shared primal affective qualia.

We declare the following: "

Mother Wolf bonding with her pups--contentment

 

The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism fro experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the  neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with

  the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that  umans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman  animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also  possess these neurological substrates." 

The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness was written by Philip Low and edited by Jaak Panksepp, Diana Reiss, David Edelman