Emmanuel Stamatakis will be speaking at the CALTECH – Consciousness & Reality (C&R) Colloquium 2024-25 Series
Wednesday, May 28, 2025 – Zoom
Emmanuel Stamatakis – Unconsciousness: Insights into consciousness
Professor of Medicine and Clinical Neuroscience, University of Cambridge
Theories of consciousness focus on how the brain processes information. One of the major challenges for neuroscientists is understanding how cognitive functions and consciousness emerge from brain dynamics. By studying brain scans of awake people, those under anaesthesia, and patients with disorders of consciousness, we found that losing consciousness reduces information integration and diversity in brain networks. This indicates that the brain’s ability to connect and process information is significantly compromised when consciousness is lost. In my talk, I will discuss how consciousness depends on specific brain interactions and how disruptions in these interactions lead to loss of consciousness.
Introduction by Christof Koch
Neuroscientist and Meritorious Investigator, Allen Institute
About the event
This lecture will be accessible to an interdisciplinary audience. Members from all divisions of the participating institutes and universities (Caltech, MIT, Cambridge, Stanford, IMICS, UC Berkeley and the University of Arizona) are welcome to join. Select questions from the Q&A window will be answered after the lecture.
About the series
The Consciousness & Reality colloquium series promotes interdisciplinary investigations on mind, cognition, consciousness, and the nature of reality. Recordings of previous C&R colloquia can be found on the Caltech and IMICS YouTube channels and on www.imics.org/seminars.
For more information, please contact Kunal Mooley by email at kmooley@caltech.edu.
Posted on 16/05/2025
