This week we learned brain anatomy. One particular aspect struck me as interesting.
The neocortex in humans grows around a smaller, more interior cortex called the cingulate gyrus. Based on our understanding (or lackthereof) about the diffuse nature of constructs like consciousness and memory, I wonder what the experience of an animal without a neocortex is.
While I concede that I can never actually know what this animal's experience is, I think that with improvements in resolution and interpretation of EEG readings, we may be able to characterize, qualitatively if not quantitatively, the nature of an animal's experience. I feel this way because there is no mystic stuff going on behind the scenes. If an animal (such as myself) experiences something, be it consciousness, pain, the perception of the color red, recalling a memory, there must be some corresponding physical change in the animal's brain.
Our book demonstrated the plasticity of a growing nervous system by removing the area that normally becomes the primary visual cortex in an animal. Examining the animal after it grew up, researchers determined that the animal still had the primary visual cortex, but it developed in a different area.
Given this plasticity, I would suspect that even though an animal lacks the complex structures found in my brain, it may still experience some of the same things I experience. I find this aspect of neuroscience to be extremely intriguing. Our ability to study it can only increase with the development of new technology, which I find very encouraging.