The Glial-Orchestrated Cognition (GOC) Model with Cellular Consciousness: A New Biological Framework for Consciousness, Information, and Cognition

Neuroscience traditionally assumes that consciousness, information processing, and cognition arise from neuronal activity. This neuron‑centric view cannot explain why consciousness persists when cognition shuts down, why cognition can operate unconsciously, or why glial cells— which outnumber neurons—are essential for coherent thought. As stated in the manuscript, “This paper introduces the Glial-Orchestrated Cognition (GOC) Model, which separates three domains: (1) consciousness as an intrinsic property of all living cells, (2) information as a specialized function of neurons, and (3) cognition as the unified informational state produced by glial coordination.” The model proposes that human conscious experience is a composite of cellular consciousness and glial-integrated cognition. This framework resolves long-standing conceptual contradictions and offers a biologically grounded, experimentally testable architecture for understanding the mind and its emergent properties.