#BuddhismAndScience

A joint team of Chinese and French researchers has produced an unprecedented map of the claustrum, a brain region long thought to coordinate conscious experience, in the crab-eating macaque. Published in Cell in April 2025, the study delivers a single-cell spatial transcriptome atlas and a whole-brain connectivity map, offering a detailed view of cellular diversity and neural wiring that underpins awareness in primates. The research provides a blueprint of the claustrum and advances our understanding of how consciousness may emerge from brain circuits. This progress resonates with Thailand’s growing interest in neuroscience and mental health.

In a landmark advance that could reshape how science understands consciousness, a collaboration of Chinese and French researchers has meticulously mapped the claustrum—the brain region often dubbed as a “conductor of consciousness”—in the crab-eating macaque monkey. Reporting their findings in the highly respected journal Cell in April 2025, the team unveiled an unprecedented single-cell spatial transcriptome atlas and a whole-brain connectivity map, shedding new light on the neural diversity and complex wiring that underpins conscious awareness in primates Cell, SCMP. This research not only offers a detailed blueprint of the elusive claustrum, but also marks a major step toward identifying how consciousness itself emerges from brain circuits—a quest with deep philosophical and practical significance for humanity, including Thai society.