Consciousness is not a switch that turns on at birth, but may be more like a gradual dawn that begins in the darkness of the womb. That's the revolutionary hypothesis emerging from new research on prenatal consciousness published in Acta Paediatrica by the professor Timothy Bayne of Monash University and his colleague Joel Frohlich.
Abandoning philosophical speculations in favor of an empirical approach, the researchers have identified four brain markers associated with consciousness in adults and looked for traces of them in newborns and fetuses. The results (I link them to you here), although preliminary, suggest something surprising: rudimentary forms of awareness there may be weeks before birth, potentially redefining our concept of the “beginning” of mental life.
The Default Mode Network: The Self-Awareness System
The first indicator of prenatal consciousness concerns a fundamental brain system called default network. In adults, this network of deep connections is closely associated with self-awareness and internal thinking: in practice, it is active when our mind wanders or reflects on itself.
I am particularly struck by the fact that researchers have identified traces of a rudimentary default mode network in newborns. This neural circuit begins to form connections with attention-related brain regions shortly after birth, suggesting that the foundations of self-awareness develop very early.
It's a finding that challenges the traditional idea that newborns are completely “absent” mentally and suggests instead that the structures necessary for self-awareness begin to form before they even experience the outside world.
The attentional blink effect: the ability to pay attention
The second scorer concerns attention, a fundamental aspect of conscious processing. Researchers have studied it through the phenomenon called “attentional blink” (attention blink): a delay in the perception of a second stimulus when two appear in rapid succession.
This effect, well documented in adults, is also seen in young children. The study found that infants as young as five months show a much longer attentional blink, indicating that although their consciousness is still developing, it is already present in some form.
“The types of conscious states that newborns (and fetuses, if they are conscious) experience when they are conscious are probably very different in nature from those that adults normally experience,” he explains. Bayne.
Multisensory integration: the fusion of perceptions
The third indicator concerns the brain's ability to integrate information from different senses. A classic method for studying this phenomenon is The McGurk Effect, where seeing a person utter one sound while hearing another produces an entirely new auditory perception: essentially a sensory fusion.
Adults consciously experience this illusion, and research suggests that Even children as young as four or five months are not immune to it. This ability to integrate visual and auditory input suggests the existence of a level of conscious processing that goes beyond simple reflex responses.
The Local-Global Effect: Responding to the Unexpected
The fourth and perhaps most surprising scorer it is known as local-global effect, which involves the brain's response to unexpected patterns. When adults notice a surprising stimulus, their brains produce a P300 wave, a telltale brain response that indicates conscious recognition of the event.
What makes this indicator particularly significant is that a similar P300 wave response was found not only in newborns, but also in fetuses as young as 35 weeks, representing one of the most convincing clues to prenatal consciousness.
Prenatal Consciousness: Scientific Caution and Open Questions
Despite these promising results, the researchers themselves urge caution. Bayne He stresses that the evidence is not yet definitive: “I don’t think it’s particularly strong. It’s suggestive, I would say, but not yet definitive.”
An important interpretive challenge is that infant and adult consciousness are fundamentally different. Even if fetuses or newborns exhibit these markers, this does not necessarily mean that they experience mental images in the same way that we do.
“Markers need to be used with caution, and I wouldn't place too much faith in any single marker in isolation,” he concludes. Bayne.
Research on prenatal consciousness continues to evolve, promising to unravel one of the greatest mysteries of the human experience: when and how we begin to be conscious. The answer could reshape not only our understanding of brain development, but also profound philosophical questions about the very nature of human consciousness.
