Patent ID: 8626264

Claim:
A method of operating a system having: a processor, receiving circuitry that, in operation, receives brain image signals indicating activity at locations in brains, and memory circuitry that, in operation, stores: program data indicating a program, and a data structure, the method comprising: operating the receiving circuitry to obtain brain image signals indicating activity at locations in a conscious human's brain; the brain image signals including electrical/magnetic signals obtained using at least one of positron emission tomography, functional magnetic resonance imaging, electroencephalography, and magnetoencephalography; operating the processor to perform the program; in performing the program, the processor extracting information from the brain image signals and including at least part of the extracted information in the data structure; and using the data structure in at least one of: diagnosis of a detrimental condition of consciousness; and treatment of a detrimental condition of consciousness; the act of operating the processor including: for each of a set of two or more brain parts, performing a respective part level iteration; each part's respective part level iteration including: obtaining region identifying data indicating regions of the brain part; and for each of a set of the regions indicated by the part's region identifying data, performing a respective region level iteration that obtains feature values indicating activity features of the region; the respective region level iteration of one or more regions including: obtaining respective qualia information based on a portion of the brain image signals that indicates activity levels of locations in the region; at least one region's qualia information including, for each quale activity feature in a set of one or more activity features that can occur in the region, a respective qualia value indicating the human's current experience corresponding to the quale activity feature; and including in the data structure qualia value data indicating, for at least one quale activity feature that can occur in one of the set of regions, the respective qualia value.