He’s Joint Determinant Theory

Neuroscientist Biyu He posits a pluralistic and integrative neurobiological approach to understanding consciousness, offering what she calls ‘Joint Determinant Theory’ as a new framework to encompass the diverse neural underpinnings of conscious experience. Emphasizing the complexity and diversity of conscious experiences that arise from the interplay of multiple neural determinants rather than a single neural correlate, He’s theory suggests that different types of conscious content—such as perceptions, memories, emotions, and thoughts, as well as their integrated experience—may be governed by distinct neural mechanisms, thus challenging the pursuit of a universal neural correlate of consciousness (He, 2023).

Pluralistic Approach to Neural Determinants

He emphasizes the necessity of integrating various neural mechanisms to fully comprehend consciousness. She argues that understanding consciousness requires acknowledging the contributions of different brain circuits and their interactions, rather than isolating a singular pathway or region responsible for conscious experience.

He’s own neuroscience research program stresses the significant role of spontaneous brain activity in shaping conscious perception. Her results demonstrate that, for visual perception, ongoing neural fluctuations, including spontaneous slow cortical potentials and brain oscillations, can influence whether a stimulus reaches conscious awareness.

“Recent findings show that even within a single modality, such as conscious visual perception, the anatomical location, timing, and information flow of neural activity related to conscious awareness vary depending on both external and internal factors” (He, 2023).

This perspective underscores the brain's complex intrinsic activity as a foundational factor in conscious experience, not merely acting as a reactive response to external stimuli.

Toward Joint Determinant Theory

This is why He advocates for “an alternative approach to empirical research on consciousness, which is to fully examine the neurobiological underpinnings of each type of conscious awareness (e.g., percepts, introspection, wills, memories, emotions, and thoughts) without favoritism. This pluralistic approach will allow the field to build a stronger empirical foundation and be more integrated with other cognitive neuroscience disciplines. If, in the end, a common set of neurobiological principles emerges across diverse types of conscious awareness, then that would be wonderfully simplifying; if not, we will have gained much fundamental knowledge along the way that is important for both basic science and clinical applications” (He, 2023).

In addition, He advocates another key motivation for her pluralistic approach to consciousness research in that “although prominent theories of consciousness focus on unifying principles, experimental work on consciousness has focused on testing specific neural correlates of consciousness (NCCs) … favored by each theory, often assuming that NCCs of a similar nature will be found across modalities and experimental paradigms.”

He disagrees, first arguing that “the search for generic (i.e., context-independent) NCCs is unlikely to be fruitful, as even within the same modality (e.g., conscious visual perception), the anatomical location, timing, and information flow pattern of neural activity related to awareness vary depending on external and internal factors.”

From there, she “zooms out” and suggests that “the assumption that the mechanistic understanding obtained by studying visual awareness will automatically extrapolate to other forms of awareness may not hold, and, therefore, neurobiological investigations of consciousness will benefit from a more pluralistic approach” (He, 2023).

This is why He proposes her new framework, the Joint Determinant Theory of Consciousness, which, she says, “may be able to accommodate a variety of brain-circuit-level mechanisms that co-contribute to conscious awareness and its integrated phenomenology“ (He, 2023).