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Updated: May 24, 2026

Assessment and Communication for People with Disorders of Consciousness
Published on: August 1, 2017
An old hypothesis and new tools: Alfred Fessard's approach to the problem of consciousness
Suzanne Tyč-Dumont1, Cesira Batini, Ginette Horcholle-Bossavit
1Équipe de Statistique Appliquée, Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie de Paris, ParisTech, Paris, France. tycdum@free.fr
Abstract:
In 1954, a symposium was held in Canada on "Brain Mechanisms and Consciousness." It was a time for the promotion of international and interdisciplinary scientific cooperation, of new technological expectation, and of speculating about complex human behavior. Alfred Fessard's lecture on "Mechanisms of Nervous Integration and Conscious Experience" was one of the outstanding presentations, rich in critical analysis of the then available experimental data and in working hypothesis proposals. Reading the concept expressed by Fessard, it was found that several of his ideas had anticipated data obtained in modern research with new technologies.
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