Conscious intention and motor cognition.

Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, UK.

The subjective experience of conscious intention is a key component of our mental life. Philosophers studying 'conscious free will' have discussed whether conscious intentions could cause actions, but modern neuroscience rejects this idea of mind-body causation. Instead, recent findings suggest that the conscious experience of intending to act arises from preparation for action in frontal and parietal brain areas. Intentional actions also involve a strong sense of agency, a sense of controlling events in the external world. Both intention and agency result from the brain processes for predictive motor control, not merely from retrospective inference.

PMID: 15925808 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]