Machine generated contents note: pt. I How do we relate to the world? -- 1. The role of the brain -- 2. The pathways for perception -- 3. The pathways for action -- 4. The subcortical motor centres -- pt. II My route to the thalamic gate -- 5. Starting to study the brain -- 6. The mamillothalamic pathways: my first encounter with the thalamus -- 7. Comparative anatomical studies of the hypothalamus that led to studies of thalamic synapses -- pt. III Arriving at the thalamic gate -- 8. Defining the functional components of the thalamic gate -- 9. Thalamic higher-order driver inputs as sensorimotor links -- 10. The hierarchy of cortical monitors -- pt. IV Higher cortical functions -- 11. Relating the neural connections to actions and perceptions -- 12. Interacting with the world -- 13. The role of the thalamocortical hierarchy -- 14. The neural origins of a sense of self with a brief note on free will.

We don't perceive the world and then react to it. We learn to know it from our interactions with it. All inputs that reach the cerebral cortex about events in the brain, the body, or the world bring two messages: one is about these events, the other, travelling along a branch of that input, is an instruction already on its way to execution. This second message, not a part of standard textbook teaching, allows us to anticipate our actions, distinguishing them from the actions of others, and thus providing a clear sense of self. The mammalian brain has a hierarchy of cortical areas, where higher areas monitor actions of lower areas, and each area can modify actions to be executed by the phylogenetically older brain parts. Brains of our premammalian ancestors lacked this hierarchy, but their descendants are still strikingly capable of movement control: frogs can catch flies. The cortical hierarchy itself appears to establish and increase, from lower to higher levels, our conscious access to events. This book explores the neural connections that provide us with a sense of self and generate our conscious experiences. It reveals how much yet needs to be learnt about the relevant neural pathways.