The findings suggest that important cognitive abilities, including language comprehension and prediction, may not depend on conscious awareness. Instead, consciousness itself may arise from communication across multiple brain regions rather than from activity within a single area such as the hippocampus.

The researchers also noted similarities between the brain's predictive behavior and artificial intelligence (AI). Just as large language models generate text by anticipating the next word, the hippocampus appeared to make similar predictions during language processing. Understanding these shared principles could help scientists better understand both biological and artificial intelligence.