Melanie Boly
Department of Neurology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Integrated information Consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information
Melanie Boly MD PhD is Associate Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. She is a leading clinical neurologist and neuroscientist known for her foundational contributions to the measurement of consciousness in comatose, anesthetized, and vegetative state patients.
Boly is a core co-developer of Integrated Information Theory 4.0 (IIT 4.0) alongside Giulio Tononi and Larissa Albantakis. Her empirical research utilizes high-density EEG, TMS-EEG perturbation metrics (such as the Perturbational Complexity Index), and functional neuroimaging to map the cortical boundaries of conscious awareness. In her 2026 research on “Pure Presence,” she identifies the posterior cortical hot zone substrates required for minimal phenomenal experience devoid of sensory content.
Boly’s work emphasizes that consciousness is determined by intrinsic cause-effect power rather than extrinsic computational input-output transformations, defining the precise mathematical conditions required for any system to generate subjective experience.
Known for. Co-developer of Integrated Information Theory 4.0 (IIT 4.0), Neural Correlates of Pure Presence, EEG/fMRI consciousness biomarkers, minimal phenomenal experience
Coverage on this site
- Melanie Boly and the Neural Correlates of Pure Presence Under IIT August 2026
- Tononi and Boly's IIT 4.0 Why Consciousness Is Identical to Cause-Effect Structure June 2026
Related researchers
- Giulio TononiUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonIntegrated information theory and the quantity phi
- Larissa AlbantakisUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, Center for Sleep and ConsciousnessIntegrated Information Theory 4.0 and dissociating intelligence from consciousness in artificial systems
- Costas AnastassiouAllen InstituteEphaptic coupling of cortical neurons, endogenous electric fields as causal participants in neural activity, extracellular field biophysics
- Anton ArkhipovAllen Institute for Brain ScienceLarge-scale neural simulation, biophysically detailed cortical models, AIBRAIN program, State of Brain Emulation Report 2025
- Bernard J. BaarsThe Neurosciences InstituteGlobal Workspace Theory (GWT), cognitive architecture of conscious access, A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness (1988), In the Theater of Consciousness (1997)
- Adam B. BarrettSussex Centre for Consciousness Science, University of SussexContinuous field formulations of Integrated Information Theory, Measure-theoretic Phi, practical complexity measures, Granger causality
Melanie Boly is listed with the other integrated information theorists, who hold that consciousness is intrinsic causal power, measured as integrated information. The theory family behind that position is set out in the index of consciousness theories. Every researcher covered on this site is indexed in the directory of consciousness researchers.