El presente artículo revisa los resultados obtenidos recientemente en el campo de la Neurociencia Cognitiva en relación con la actividad consciente en primates superiores. El conjunto de datos obtenido mediante técnicas como la Tomografía por Emisión de Positrones o la Resonancia Magnética Funcional y los registros unicelulares en monos, conjuntamente con el estudio de casos únicos de pacientes neuropsicológicos, puede ser utilizadopara apoyar o desmentir aquellos modelos teóricos destinados a explicar la consciencia y para generar nuevas hipótesis en relacion a ésta. Las regiones cerebrales asociadas con la actividad consciente son parcialmente separables de aquéllas relacionadas con procesos inconscientes. Por otro lado, la consciencia se asocia a procesos de integración de información entre áreas de asociación terciarias como las cortezas parietales y prefrontales. Estos resultados concuerdan con aquellos modelos cognitivos que, en oposición a concepciones epifenomenistas, asocian la actividad consciente con procesos cerebralesy funciones cognitivas específicas que son vitales para la economía cognitiva.
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