Animal consciousness

Pierre Le Neindre (1) , Emilie Bernard (2) , Alain Boissy (3) , Xavier Boivin (3) , Ludovic Calandreau (4) , Nicolas Delon (5) , Bertrand Deputte (6) , Sonia Desmoulin-Canselier (7) , Muriel Dunier-Thomann (8) , Nathan Faivre (9) , Martin Giurfa (10, 11) , Jean-Luc Guichet (12) , Léa Lansade (4) , Raphaël Larrère (13) , Pierre Mormède (14) , Patrick Prunet (15) , Benoist Schaal (16) , Jacques Serviere (1, 17) , Claudia Terlouw (3)

1 INRA - Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
2 PEGASE - Physiologie, Environnement et Génétique pour l'Animal et les Systèmes d'Elevage [Rennes]
3 UMRH - Unité Mixte de Recherche sur les Herbivores - UMR 1213
4 PRC - Physiologie de la reproduction et des comportements [Nouzilly]
5 Environmental Studies and Animal Studies
6 ENVA - École nationale vétérinaire d'Alfort
7 DCS - Droit et changement social
8 DEPE - Délégation à l'Expertise scientifique collective, à la Prospective et aux Etudes
9 CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne
10 CRCA - Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale - UMR5169
11 UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier
12 CAREF - Centre Amiénois de Recherche en Education et Formation - UR UPJV 4697
13 RiTME - Risques, Travail, Marchés, Etat
14 GenPhySE - Génétique Physiologie et Systèmes d'Elevage
15 LPGP - Laboratoire de Physiologie et Génomique des Poissons
16 CSGA - Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation [Dijon]
17 AgroParisTech

After reviewing the literature on current knowledge about consciousness in humans, we present a state-of-the art discussion on consciousness and related key concepts in animals. Obviously much fewer publications are available on non-human species than on humans, most of them relating to laboratory or wild animal species, and only few to livestock species. Human consciousness is by definition subjective and private. Animal consciousness is usually assessed through behavioural performance. Behaviour involves a wide array of cognitive processes that have to be assessed separately using specific experimental protocols. Accordingly, several processes indicative of the presence of consciousness are discussed: perception and cognition, awareness of the bodily-self, self-related knowledge of the environment (including social environment). When available, specific examples are given in livestock species. Next, we review the existing evidence regarding neuronal correlates of consciousness, and emphasize the difficulty of linking aspects of consciousness to specific neural structures across the phyla because high-level cognitive abilities may have evolved independently along evolution. Several mammalian brain structures (cortex and midbrain) are involved in the manifestations of consciousness, while the equivalent functional structures for birds and fishes would likely be the pallium/tectum and midbrain. Caution is required before excluding consciousness in species not having the same brain structures as the mammalian ones as different neural architectures may mediate comparable processes. Finally, specific neurophysiological mechanisms appear to be strongly linked to the emergence of consciousness, namely neural synchrony and neural feedback. Considering the limited amount of data available and the few animal species studied so far, we conclude that different manifestations of consciousness can be observed in animals but that further refinement is still needed to characterize their level and content in each species. Further research is required to clarify these issues, especially in livestock species.

Mots clés: phylogeny; Adaptation; consciousness; pain; Awareness; Behaviour; Neurobiology; Philosophy

Mots clés: animal; conscience; épistémologie; adaptation animale; neurobiologie; comportement animal; douleur; perception; cognition animale; phylogénie

Domaines: Autre [q-bio.OT]

Pierre Le Neindre, Emilie Bernard, Alain Boissy, Xavier Boivin, Ludovic Calandreau, et al.. Animal consciousness. [0] European Food Safety Authority. 2017, 165 p. ⟨hal-01594939⟩