
Overview
Background
How to build a brain—2.0
For 25 years I was sole chief investigator on 17 NHMRC-ARC project grants that provided funding to decipher the molecular & cellular bases of brain development and regeneration in fish, frogs and mice. This work culminated in the discovery of how to genetically construct an evolutionary novel axon tract in the embryonic brain. This is what I now call an easy problem.
Now my lab has turned its attention to the hardest problem in the natural sciences—how does the brain experience subjective feelings?
Together with my collaborator Professor Deborah Brown (Professor of Philosophy at UQ) we have approached this problem through the sensation of pain and model organisms. We advance the framework of the brain as an inference machine that generates models of its own internal processes (Key and Brown, 2018). When hierarchically arranged, the outputs of these models represent progressive levels of awareness that are antecedent to feelings (i.e. the brain’s experience of its own neural activity). We have proposed a parallel forwards model algorithm and to date have found that fish and molluscs lack the required neural architecture to execute this algorithm and therefore do not feel pain.
Key, B. and Brown, D. (2018) Designing brains for pain: Human to mollusc. Frontiers in physiology 9:1027.
Availability
- Professor Brian Key is:
- Available for supervision
- Media expert
Fields of research
Qualifications
- Bachelor of Education, The University of Queensland
- Doctor of Philosophy, The University of Queensland
Research interests
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brain development
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fish pain
Works
Search Professor Brian Key’s works on UQ eSpace
Featured
2019
Other Outputs
You look but do not find: why the absence of evidence can be a useful thing
Brown, Deborah and Key, Brian (2019, 04 23). You look but do not find: why the absence of evidence can be a useful thing The Conversation
Featured
2018
Journal Article
Designing brains for pain: human to mollusc
Key, Brian and Brown, Deborah (2018). Designing brains for pain: human to mollusc. Frontiers in Physiology, 9 (AUG) 1027, 1027. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2018.01027
Featured
2018
Journal Article
Welfare of aquatic animals: where things are, where they are going, and what it means for research, aquaculture, recreational angling, and commercial fishing
Browman, Howard I., Cooke, Steven J., Cowx, Ian G., Derbyshire, Stuart W. G., Kasumyan, Alexander, Key, Brian, Rose, James D., Schwab, Alexander, Skiftesvik, Anne Berit, Stevens, E. Don, Watson, Craig A. and Arlinghaus, Robert (2018). Welfare of aquatic animals: where things are, where they are going, and what it means for research, aquaculture, recreational angling, and commercial fishing. ICES Journal of Marine Science, 76 (1), 82-92. doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fsy067
Featured
2016
Journal Article
Insects cannot tell us anything about subjective experience or the origin of consciousness
Key, Brian, Arlinghaus, Robert and Browman, Howard I. (2016). Insects cannot tell us anything about subjective experience or the origin of consciousness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113 (27), E3813-E3813. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1606835113
Featured
2016
Journal Article
Do fish feel pain?
Key, Brian (2016). Do fish feel pain?. Australasian Science, 37 (3), 30-33.
Featured
2016
Journal Article
Why fish do not feel pain
Key, Brian (2016). Why fish do not feel pain. Animal Sentience: An Interdisciplinary Journal on Animal Feeling, 3 (1).
Featured
2016
Book Chapter
Development and regeneration of the vertebrate brain
Key, Brian (2016). Development and regeneration of the vertebrate brain. Regenerative medicine-from protocol to patient. (pp. 249-290) edited by Gustav Steinhoff. Basel, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-27583-3_8
Featured
2014
Journal Article
Fish do not feel pain and its implications for understanding phenomenal consciousness
Key, Brian (2014). Fish do not feel pain and its implications for understanding phenomenal consciousness. Biology and Philosophy, 30 (2), 149-165. doi: 10.1007/s10539-014-9469-4
2024
Journal Article
Making sense of feelings
Key, Brian and Brown, Deborah J (2024). Making sense of feelings. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 2024 (1) niae034, niae034. doi: 10.1093/nc/niae034
2024
Journal Article
Reasons to be skeptical about sentience and pain in fishes and aquatic invertebrates
Diggles, Benjamin K., Arlinghaus, Robert, Browman, Howard I., Cooke, Steven J., Cooper, Robin L., Cowx, Ian G., Derby, Charles D., Derbyshire, Stuart W., Hart, Paul JB, Jones, Brian, Kasumyan, Alexander O., Key, Brian, Pepperell, Julian G., Rogers, D Christopher, Rose, James D., Schwab, Alex, Skiftesvik, Anne B., Stevens, Don, Shields, Jeffrey D. and Watson, Craig (2024). Reasons to be skeptical about sentience and pain in fishes and aquatic invertebrates. Reviews in Fisheries Science and Aquaculture, 32 (1), 127-150. doi: 10.1080/23308249.2023.2257802
2024
Book Chapter
Making sense of plant sense
Key, Brian and Brown, Deborah J. (2024). Making sense of plant sense. Philosophy of plant cognition: interdisciplinary perspectives. (pp. 189-209) edited by Gabriele Ferretti, Peter Schulte and Markus Wild. New York, NY, United States: Taylor and Francis. doi: 10.4324/9781003393375-14
2023
Journal Article
What if worms were sentient? Insights into subjective experience from the Caenorhabditis elegans connectome
Zalucki, Oressia, Brown, Deborah J. and Key, Brian (2023). What if worms were sentient? Insights into subjective experience from the Caenorhabditis elegans connectome. Biology and Philosophy, 38 (5) 34, 1-25. doi: 10.1007/s10539-023-09924-y
2023
Book Chapter
Foundations of Human and Animal Sensory Awareness: Descartes and Willis
Brown, Deborah and Key, Brian (2023). Foundations of Human and Animal Sensory Awareness: Descartes and Willis. Reading Descartes. (pp. 81-99) Florence: Firenze University Press. doi: 10.36253/979-12-215-0169-8.06
2022
Journal Article
A first principles approach to subjective experience
Key, Brian, Zalucki, Oressia and Brown, Deborah J. (2022). A first principles approach to subjective experience. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 16 756224, 756224. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2022.756224
2021
Journal Article
Neural design principles for subjective experience: implications for insects
Key, Brian, Zalucki, Oressia and Brown, Deborah J. (2021). Neural design principles for subjective experience: implications for insects. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 15 658037, 1-20. doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2021.658037
2021
Journal Article
Is absence of evidence of pain ever evidence of absence?
Brown, Deborah J. and Key, Brian (2021). Is absence of evidence of pain ever evidence of absence?. Synthese, 199 (1-2), 3881-3902. doi: 10.1007/s11229-020-02961-0
2021
Journal Article
Plant sentience, semantics, and the emergentist dilemma
Brown, Deborah and Key, Brian (2021). Plant sentience, semantics, and the emergentist dilemma. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 28 (1-2), 155-183.
2020
Journal Article
Pragmatic animal welfare is independent of feelings
Arlinghaus, Robert, Cowx, Ian G., Key, Brian, Diggles, Ben K., Schwab, Alexander, Cooke, Steven J., Skiftesvik, Anne Berit and Browman, Howard I. (2020). Pragmatic animal welfare is independent of feelings. Science, 370 (6513), 180-180. doi: 10.1126/science.abe3397
2020
Book Chapter
Descartes’ dualism of mind and body in the development of psychological thought
Brown, Deborah and Key, Brian (2020). Descartes’ dualism of mind and body in the development of psychological thought. Oxford research encyclopedia of psychology. (pp. 1-22) edited by Wade E. Pickren. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.486
2020
Journal Article
Minds, morality and midgies
Key, Brian and Brown, Deborah (2020). Minds, morality and midgies. Animal Sentience, 5 (29) 24. doi: 10.51291/2377-7478.1619
Funding
Past funding
Supervision
Availability
- Professor Brian Key is:
- Available for supervision
Before you email them, read our advice on how to contact a supervisor.
Available projects
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Towards closure of the fish pain debate
We are seeking an Arts-Biomedical Science graduate to partake in this ambitious project.
Arguments to the effect that certain animals do or do not have feelings, such as pain, are presumptive arguments. Like legal arguments, presumptive arguments are defeasible arguments, the conclusions of which are thought to be rationally acceptable on the balance of considerations (Walton 1996, 2011). Also like legal arguments, they invite paradoxical worries about how an argument can be both defeasible yet rationally binding (Walton et al, 2008). In legal contexts, we do not have the luxury of leaving questions of guilt or innocence hanging. A decision must be made. So too in matters pertaining to animal welfare, it is necessary to evaluate whether we have sufficient reason to decide whether a particular species of animal does or does not feel pain if we are to ensure that our treatment of that species is ethically appropriate.
Each of the arguments in the animal consciousness debate can and has been evaluated on its own terms, but an interesting pattern emerges when viewed together as constituting a single dialogue involving multiple reasoners operating on divergent background assumptions and principles of reasoning. From this perspective, it can be seen where the blockages to consensus lie and what it would take to move the debate towards some form of closure so that decisions of importance to animal welfare could be undertaken with more confidence than they currently are. No meta-analysis of this debate as an instance of multi-agent reasoning has hitherto been undertaken. The overarching aim of this project is to conduct just such an analysis in an effort to identify principles that both sides of the debate might rationally agree upon and move the debate towards epistemic closure.
The principal aims are:
Aim 1. To reconstruct the debate about pain in non-human animals as an instance of multi-agent reasoning or dialogue to clarify precise points of agreement and disagreement,
Aim 2. To argue for shared principles of reasoning drawing on available neuroscientific evidence in order to create avenues towards closure, and
Aim 3. To address concerns about moral risk exceeding epistemic risk in judgements about non-human animal pain.
Supervision history
Current supervision
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Doctor Philosophy
Scepticism of other minds in the animal pain debate
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Deborah Brown
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Doctor Philosophy
Scepticism of other minds in the animal pain debate
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Deborah Brown
Completed supervision
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2019
Doctor Philosophy
The Non-Invasive Detection of Anatomical Injury Locations in Low Back Pain Patients Using Laser Displacement Mechanomyography
Principal Advisor
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2013
Doctor Philosophy
The Autism susceptibility gene nrxn1 interacts with an intellectual disability gene lrrtm2 in vivo to regulate locomotor behaviours and spinal cord cytoarchitecture
Principal Advisor
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2012
Doctor Philosophy
Functional Analysis of Repulsive Guidance Molecule A during Early Vertebrate Development
Principal Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Helen Cooper
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2010
Doctor Philosophy
The cellular and molecular mechanisms of olfactory ensheathing cell and axon migration
Principal Advisor
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2009
Doctor Philosophy
Cellular mechanisms of axon guidance and targeting in the olfactory system
Principal Advisor
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2007
Doctor Philosophy
CELLULAR MECHANISMS OF AXON TARGETING IN THE REGENERATING OLFACTORY SYSTEM
Principal Advisor
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2006
Doctor Philosophy
ROBO AND SLIT HAVE AN AXON GUIDANCE ROLE IN THE EMBRYONIC VERTEBRATE BRAIN
Principal Advisor
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2006
Doctor Philosophy
AXON GROWTH AND GUIDANCE IN THE EMBRYONIC VERTEBRATE FOREBRAIN
Principal Advisor
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2003
Doctor Philosophy
MECHANISMS OF AXON GROWTH AND GUIDANCE IN THE VERTEBRATE NERVOUS SYSTEM
Principal Advisor
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2014
Doctor Philosophy
Odorant and taste receptor systems in the heart: investigation of novel cardiac biology
Associate Advisor
Other advisors: Professor Wally Thomas, Professor Eugeni Roura
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2008
Doctor Philosophy
Characterisation and expression of zebrafish frizzled-3a (zfzd3a) during embryonic development
Associate Advisor
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2005
Master Philosophy
THE EFFECTS OF COCAINE EXPOSURE DURING EARLY LIFE ON RAT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT
Associate Advisor
Media
Enquiries
Contact Professor Brian Key directly for media enquiries about:
- brain development
- fish pain
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