Understanding the structural and functional neuroanatomy of core consciousness (ie, wakefulness and awareness) is an asset to clinicians caring for persons with disorders of consciousness. This article provides a primer on the structural and functional neuroanatomy of wakefulness and awareness. The neuroanatomical structures supporting these elements of core consciousness functions are reviewed first, after which brief description of the clinically evaluable relationships between disruption of these structures and disorders of consciousness (ie, brain–behavior relationships) are outlined. Consideration of neuroanatomy at the mesoscale (ie, the mesocircuit hypothesis) as well as in relation to several large-scale neural networks is offered.