Consciousness Redux
I write a regular column for Scientific American MIND called Consciousness Redux. In each essay, I comment on a recent experimental or theoretical development that is important to help ups understand the neuronal roots of the conscious mind. Most columns have a decided neurobiological point-of-view.
June 2018: What Is Consciousness?
Scientists are beginning to unravel a mystery that has long vexed philosophers
May 2017: Contacting Stranded Minds
Brain imaging can establish a two-way lifeline to some severely brain-damaged patients.
March 2017: Footprints of Consciousness
The bits and pieces of the brain that render us conscious reside in places few suspected.
November 2016: Sleeping While Awake
During microsleep, the entire brain nods off so briefly that we often don't notice it. Now research shows that individual neurons in the brain can slumber, too, especially when we feel sleep-deprived.
September 2016: To Sleep with Half a Brain
Sleep and wakefulness are not all-or-none states of mind. When we sleep, one side of our brain can be awake.
July 2016: How the Computer Beat the Go Player
As a leading go player falls to a machine, artificial intelligence takes a decisive step on the road to overtaking the natural variety.
May 2016: Constructing the Modern Mind
From Aristotle to Watson, our views on mind, brain and soul have evolved. A brilliant new book adds perspective.
A long-forgotten epidemic teaches us about the science of slumber.
January 2016: Does Brain Size Matter?
A recent discovery proves embarrassing to any notion of humanity’s innate superiority.
November 2015: Do Androids Dream?
The search to understand how artificial neural networks process images yields insights and a trippy brand of beauty.
July 2015: Intelligence Without Sentience
Artificial intelligence is coming of age and challenging our belief that being smart and being conscious go hand-in-hand.
Intuition is rooted in the brain’s uncanny ability to rapidly know the answer without knowing why.
March 2015: Two Natural Philosophers, Centuries Apart, Converse about the Mind
Can you guess who they are?
January 2015: The Face as Entryway to the Self
What happens in the brain when you see—really “see”—a friend’s smile or scowl.
November 2014: A Brain Structure Looking For A Function
Could the claustrum--a thin, enigmatic layer of nerve cells--be a key component of the networks generating conscious experience?
July 2014: Does My Smartphone Really Love Me?
The movie Her makes a compelling case for a computer program with feelings. Is that actually possible?
What is consciousness? Global Neuronal Workspace argues that consciousness arises when information is broadcast throughout the brain.
January 2014: Ubiquitous Minds
Panpsychism, the ancient doctrine that consciousness is universal, offers some lessons in how to think about subjective experience today.
September 2013: The Conscious Infant
A new study finds a possible brain signature of consciousness in infants as young as five months.
An encounter with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the scientific study of meditation.
November 2012: Cracking the Retinal Code
Silicon eyes to help people with deteriorating vision are around the corner.
September 2012: Safely switching consciousness off and on again
What can we learn about consciousness from anesthetized patients?.
May 2012: This is your brain on drugs
To the great surprise of many, psilocybin, a potent psychedelic, reduces brain activity.
March 2012: Consciousness does not reside here
Psychology and functional brain imaging disentangle two closely related processes, attention and consciousness.
January 2012: Movies in the cortical theater
Functional MRI can peer inside your brain and watch you watching a YouTube clip.
November 2011: Proving the Unconscious Mind
Cognitive psychology ius mapping the capabilities we are unaware we possess.
Using optical and genetic technqiues, neuroscientists have identified an "on/off" switch for aggression in the brain.
Some protozoa infect the brain of their host, shaping its behavior in ways most suited to the pathogen, even if it leads to the suicide of the host.
March 2011: Being John Malkovich
An advanced brain-machine interface enables patients to control individual nerve cells deep inside their own brain.
The ways in which brains differ from one another shows up in the way their owners perceive the world.
Although we rarely remember our nighttime reveries, they may hold the key to consciousness.
What stays with us, and what we forget, depends in part on how well our neurons keep time.
When you are facing a tricky task, your view of the world may not be as accurate as you think.
March 2010: Playing the body electric
A combination of genetic and optics gives brain scientists an unprecedented ability to dissect the circuits of the mind.
January 2010: Reviving consciousness
Direct stimulation of the arousal centers in patients may restore awareness.
July 2009: A theory of consciousness
Is complexity the secret to sentience, to a panpsychic view of consciousness?
April 2009: Neuroscience meets Psychoanalysis (with Heather Berlin)
Suppression and dissociation, two psychoanalytic defense mechanisms, are now studied by modern neuroscience.
February 2009: Measure more, argue less
One sign of progress in unraveling the mind-body problem is the development of new and ingenious ways to measure consciousness.
December 2008: What is it like to be a bee?
Bees display a remarkable range of talentsabilities that in a mammal such as a dog we would associate with consciousness.
October 2008: Rendering the visible invisible
Clever experiments reveal how unconscious mechanisms can affect our brain and our behavior.