Descripción del proyecto
Comprender la conciencia humana a través de la neurobiología, la neurociencia y la psicología
El equipo del proyecto HUMANCONSCIOUSNESS, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, estudiará la conciencia humana a través del prisma de la neurobiología, la neurociencia y la psicología. Al combinar técnicas de neuroimagen, intervenciones farmacológicas y modelización computacional, el equipo explorará el papel de los neurotransmisores en la experiencia consciente. También se comprobará cómo la excitación y la actividad física influyen en la experiencia subjetiva, y cómo las predicciones y la información sensorial interactúan para dar forma a la conciencia. Se pretende ofrecer un marco integrador para comprender los mecanismos neuronales y bioquímicos de la conciencia y cómo ésta se ve moldeada por la interacción humana con el entorno. En HUMANCONSCIOUSNESS se profundizará nuestra comprensión de la conciencia y sus resultados repercutirán en campos como la psicología, la neurobiología y la medicina.
Objetivo
Consciousness is subjective experience, the ‘what it is likeness’, for example to perceive a certain scene or to feel joy. In the last three decades tremendous progress has been made in identifying the neural correlates of consciousness at the level of whole brain regions. Meanwhile, outside the field of consciousness, rapid progress has been made in understanding neural, biochemical and psychological factors that have to be accounted for to further understand human consciousness. Most importantly, we know much more about the neurotransmitter systems underlying basic sensory processes in animals (e.g. neurobiology), the mechanisms responsible for fluctuations in wakefulness and arousal (e.g. anesthetics/neurobiology), and how perception is constructed by the brain’s predictions about regularities in the world (e.g. neuroscience/psychology). This research has, however, been performed in relative isolation from studies of human consciousness and clear opportunities to link these different fields remain largely unexplored. Here I will establish this crucial link by combining state-of-the-art neuroimaging techniques with pharmacological interventions and computational modelling in humans performing novel experimental tasks gauging subjective perceptual experience. My project has 3 main aims. I will first test the hypothesis that excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters play central, albeit different roles in recurrent neural processes, crucial for conscious experience. Second, I will test how subjective experience is shaped by spontaneous fluctuations in arousal and levels of physical activity. Third, I will test how conscious experience is modulated by the interplay between predictions and sensory input. This research promises to provide an integrative framework for understanding the neural and biochemical mechanisms of consciousness, and will reveal how it is shaped and determined by being a human agent that interacts with, acts in, and predicts its environment.
Ámbito científico
Programa(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Régimen de financiación
ERC - Support for frontier research (ERC)Institución de acogida
1012WX Amsterdam
Países Bajos