This is just the beginning. I really believe we have no idea of the depth of emotion and thought that animals have...

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 on 

this 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 strategies 

for human and non-human animal research have been developed. Consequently, more data is 

becoming  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.  

 The neural substrates of emotions do not appear to be confined to cortical structures. In fact, 

subcortical 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, including 

those internal states that are rewarding and punishing. Deep brain stimulation of these systems 

in 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 decision 

making appear to have arisen in evolution as early as the invertebrate radiation, being evident in

insects and cephalopod mollusks (e.g., octopus).

 Birds appear to offer, in their behavior, neurophysiology, and neuroanatomy a striking case of 

parallel evolution of  consciousness.   Evidence of near human-like levels of consciousness has 

been  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 patterns

similar 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 in 

cortical  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: “The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from 

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.”

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

Swinderen, Philip Low and Christof Koch.  The Declaration was publicly  proclaimed in  Cambridge, UK, on July 7, 2012, at the Francis Crick 

Memorial Conference on Consciousness in Human and non-Human Animals, at Churchill College, University of Cambridge, by Low, Edelman and 

Koch. The Declaration was signed by the conference participants that very evening, in the presence of Stephen Hawking, in the Balfour Room at

the Hotel du Vin in Cambridge, UK. The signing ceremony was memorialized by CBS 60 Minutes.