Might the best way to go about it be to first consider what it does?

Plants don't appear to have central nervous systems, but they are very much alive. What is the difference between flora and fauna? One moves intentionally, while the other doesn't. So what does moving about require? Basically some perception of one's environment and ability to use prior experiences to inform future ones. Which is what the mind does.

Now let's look at how we construct our interpretaion of this situation; Since we have this sequential process of perception, from which we have evolved a narrative based culture, of collectively learning and transmitting knowledge from our journeys and experiences, we have come see this process of time as a path along which we move, from past to future. Which physics codifies as measures of duration and correlates them with measures of distance.

The reality is that change turns future to past. Tomorrow becomes yesterday, because the earth turns.

There can be no literal dimension of time, because the past is consumed by the present, to inform and drive it. Causality and conservation of energy. Cause becomes effect.

Duration is this physical state, as the configurations come and go. Time is an effect, like temperature, pressure, color, sound. Think frequencies and amplitudes.

Energy is "conserved," because it is the present. Its changing configuration is time.

Consequently the energy, as process, goes past to future, while the forms generated go future to past.

As consciousness goes past to future, while the patterns generated, the thoughts, emotions, perceptions, go future to past.

So it would seem that consciousness might be equated with a form of energy.

Yet as these biological organisms, it is the digestive, respiratory and circulatory systems processing the energy, while the central nervous sorts through the forms, the frequencies and amplitudes of color and sound. Motor and steering. Desire and judgement.

So maybe, we have to look deeper than just the circuits firing in the brain. It might be the lens and filter through which this light of cognition shines, but not necessarily the source.