Physical approaches to the study of consciousness

Various physical approaches, both theoretical and technological, to the study of consciousness are reviewed briefly. The main characteristics for describing consciousness are first summarized, then recent research results using new physical methods for locating the areas of conscious activity in the brain are presented. Finally, certain theoretical hypotheses from physics, especially quantum theory, for exploring the mechanism of consciousness in the brain are described. The use of information theory to compute the complexity of consciousness is also discussed.