Abstract

Abstract: Uncovering the neural mechanisms that allow conscious access to information is a major challenge of neuroscience. An incomplete list of still open questions includes: What are the necessary brain computational properties to permit access to a stream of conscious contents? What is the relationship between conscious perception, self-awareness and multisensory processing of bodily signals? How do these processes change when the brain transitions to an ‘unconscious’ state (like sleep, anesthesia or pathological conditions)? Can we externally trigger state-of-consciousness transitions by means of stimulation?

In this presentation Dr. Sitt will present his work and latest developments including different pre-clinical and clinical experimental models (brain-injuries and/or anesthesia), neuroimaging methods (EEG, fMRI and brain/body interactions) and stimulation techniques (tES, auditory/somatosensory/visual stimulation). Overall Dr. Sitt will try to demonstrate that the integration of multimodal neural information provides critical information to characterize the state-of-consciousness in physiological and pathological conditions and might help to predict novel optimal therapeutic strategies.