Consciousbrain ERC Project
Claire Sergent has been awarded an ERC Consolidator grant, the project CONSCIOUSBRAIN is starting for 5 years (2023-2028).
![Consciousbrain ERC](http://sergent-consciousness-lab.u-paris.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/2023/12/Consciousbrain-ERC.png)
Framework of the Consciousbrain ERC Project
© Claire Sergent
When we are awake, part of the information processed by our brain becomes conscious, so that we can acknowledge and report it. Despite important advances, there is no consensus on what brain mechanisms underlie this phenomenon. According to some models, we become conscious of a stimulus when information gets integrated across different sensory areas; for other, conscious processing only arises when sensory representations are made available to the executive system.
With this project I explore a third possibility: that the core mechanisms of conscious processing can actually be distinguished both from sensory and executive processes. Such experimental dissection is made possible by two new approaches developed by my team.
- The first approach allows detecting brain dynamics that are characteristic of conscious processing, independently of whether a task is required on the stimulus or not, thus dissociating conscious processing from executive functions.
- The second builds upon the “retro-perception” phenomenon, in which we trigger conscious access at an arbitrary latency after the disappearance of a stimulus, thus desynchronizing conscious access from sensory processing. I will jointly leverage these two approaches, through a wide range of complementary techniques: experimental psychology, functional MRI, electro and magneto encephalography, and human intracranial recordings.
Experimentation will go hand in hand with the development of a major update to current neuro-computational models of conscious processing, to explore the computational properties of such core system for conscious processing.
Finally this research should reveal much longed-for neural signatures of conscious processing. I will aim at operationalizing these signatures for the diagnosis of conscious access in non-communicating patients, and for starting the exploration of how a conscious stream emerges from these moment-to-moment conscious access events.
This project is funded by the European Research Council – ERC.
![LOGO_ERC-FLAG_EU_](http://sergent-consciousness-lab.u-paris.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/2023/12/LOGO_ERC-FLAG_EU_-e1701797211357.jpg)
Read also
![Forum for Consciousness Research](https://sergent-consciousness-lab.u-paris.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/2024/05/Oslo-taille-OK-1080x637.png)
Forum for Consciousness Research
On April 15, 2024, Pr. Claire Sergent, gave a lecture in our forum: Investigating the neural mechanisms of conscious processing in humans. © Domus Bibliotheca, University of Oslo Abstract: When we contrast how the brain processes the same external stimulation...
![GDR Vision Grenoble ’24](https://sergent-consciousness-lab.u-paris.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/2024/01/Grenoble-e1705587510923.jpg)
GDR Vision Grenoble ’24
The whole consciousness team is going to the annual forum of GDR Vision to present their POSTERS on perception and consciousness. © Grenoble The GDR Vision brings together the community of researchers in France working on visual perception (from the perception of...
![Progress and Visions in Consciousness Science](https://sergent-consciousness-lab.u-paris.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/2023/12/Mathematical-Consciousness-Science-1024x576-1.jpg)
Progress and Visions in Consciousness Science
An interdisciplinary online seminar series organised by AMCS, MESEC and OMCAN. Claire Sergent: The Global Workspace and the Global Playground - A Functional Perspective on Consciousness beyond Task-Related Processes. ©...
![Metacognition and Consciousness Workshop](https://sergent-consciousness-lab.u-paris.fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/68/2023/12/Visiter-Marseille-en-10-lieux-marseille-scaled-1-1-e1701873822162-1080x675.jpeg)
Metacognition and Consciousness Workshop
Claire Sergent: "The global workspace and the global playground: distinguishing conscious access from task-related processes". Institut de Neurosciences de la Timone. © Marseille. Perceptual metacognition explores the subjective assessment and control of...