There's still a long way to go to affirm these EM fields' role in consciousness, but increasing evidence shows that they (at least) play a role.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and the same can be said about mysteries of science. Whenever some phenomenon seems inexplicable -- at least, with the theories and laws that make up the foundation of our knowledge -- a multitude of hypotheses quickly fill the void. This is particularly true in physics, where new observations have spawned ideas related to chaos theory, string theory, and cold dark matter theory (among many others). But the same can also be said for the scientific world of the conscious mind.

Simply put: we don't really know why we think (and, therefore, are). But a multitude of theories attempt to explain the biological phenomenon of consciousness that underlies our very existence. Some theories compare the brain to a computer, with neurons as stand-ins for transistors. Other theories believe the brain to be non-algorithmic, and that consciousness perhaps has a quantum quality.

But one theory in particular is gaining some experimental traction as of late. It explores how human consciousness could be explained through the electromagnetic fields -- known as "ephaptic fields" -- produced by neurons through synaptic firing. These fields are what allow an electroencephalogram (EEG), for example, to pick up brain activity.

"The 'ephaptic' in ephaptic coupling simply means 'touching,'" Tamlyn Hunt, an affiliate guest in psychology at University of California Santa Barbara's META lab, wrote in an opinion article published in Scientific American. "Though not well-known, the effects of ephaptic fields result from the textbook electric and magnetic interactions that power our cells.

"Intriguing experimental results," he continued, "suggest these same forces play a bigger role in the brain than one suspected and perhaps even in consciousness."

Hunt went on to describe how, in 2019, researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio completely bisected the hippocampus of a mouse. Despite the severance, the team still recorded activity that could "leap" across the cut -- a phenomenon only possible through electric field coupling. This effect dissipated once the severed sections were separated by more than 400 microns.

"It was a jaw-dropping moment," senior author Dominique M Durand said at the time. "For us and for every scientist we told about this so far."

This electrical effect could help explain another problem in our current, neuron-based understanding of consciousness -- normal spike pathways are too slow to explain cognitive function. However, when coupled with the speed of these ephaptic field effects, that speed increases some 5,000 times over, according to another study from 2020.

While this theory appears to be gathering steam, there's still much more to explore. Ephaptic fields and other theories of consciousness rely on these computable methods, but few tackle what's known as the "hard problem" of consciousness -- how those biological processes create subjective experience.

That said, if the history of science shows us anything, it's that these vacuums of understanding filled with various hypotheses eventually do crystallize into fact with enough evidence, data, and verification. Solving the mystery of consciousness is one of the most complicated scientific endeavors undertaken by humans, but as the biological machinations of the brain are slowly revealed, the fuzzy contours of consciousness are gaining clarity.