Animal Consciousness: Are They Aware That They Are Suffering?
Are animals aware that they are suffering? Believe it or not, many of us have wondered about this up to several times. One can safely say that anyone who has had an animal or loves animals is 100% sure of this answer. But what does neuroscience say about animal consciousness? Can science actually secure and support the fact that animals have their own consciousness and that they understand what is happening inside them?
Neuroscience has more than conclusive evidence that all mammals, birds, and other species are aware that they are suffering. Animal consciousness is not a new topic, by the way. In 2013, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness presented this case.
Researchers have identified homologous circuits in humans and animals whose activity coincides with conscious experiences. It seems that the neuronal circuits that are activated when an animal senses an emotion are the same as those that are activated in humans. Well-known neurologists around the world support this study and agree that animals are actually aware that they are suffering.
Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness
On June 7, 2012, a group of renowned researchers signed the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness . This document states that not only humans but also a significant amount of animals, including vertebrates and invertebrates, are sentient beings. This means that they are aware of what they are experiencing and that they, in addition, may have positive or negative mental stress.
There is a scientific consensus on the evidence that shows us that animals have neuroanatomical, neurochemical and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states, along with an ability to show a conscious behavior. In other words, humans are not the only ones who have neural substrates that generate consciousness.
Philip Low, founder and CEO of the neuro-diagnostics company NeuroVigil in California, Christof Koch of the Seattle Allen Institute for Brain Science , David Edelman of the La Jolla Neurosciences Institute , and other prestigious neuroscientists, signed the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness.
It has been confirmed that the capacity to have positive and negative experiences is what makes a being conscious.
Recent studies on this topic
Many studies continue to confirm these facts. In 2016, Jarrod Bailey and Shiranee Pereira presented an investigation into brain circuits related to emotions and empathy in dogs. This study confirms and expands the conclusions of the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness .
INRA, together with the European Food Safety Authority , also carried out a study on animal awareness. They unveiled the results publicly in 2017, in Parma, Italy. The research confirmed that animals are equipped with nervous systems that support conscious processes of complex information, including negative emotions caused by nociceptive stimuli.
The study analyzed various species, including primates, the crow family, rodents and ruminants. The researchers concluded that animals with an autobiographical memory, such as primates, the crow family and rodents, may have desires and goals that extend into both the future and the past.
Animal consciousness is real
Those who mistreat animals defend their actions by saying that animals do not feel anything. After seven years of more than solid evidence of animal awareness and the diversity of subsequent studies that support this statement, this is no longer an excuse to support animal cruelty.
Anyone who treats animals as objects, treats them badly and abuses them in various ways, must look for other arguments to defend themselves, because research does not support them at all. Furthermore, the regulation of animal rights, animal welfare and animal welfare has had enormous legal significance. It is simply the case that all the studies and evidence we have mentioned here are turned into laws.
It seems that from now on, despite the complexity of studying human consciousness, it will now be studied alongside animal consciousness.
