Decoding the cryptic connection between the brain's architecture and our consciousness

Mar 19 2024European Cooperation in Science and Technology Imagine an alien spacecraft landing on Earth, a mysterious entity unlike anything ever seen before. Now, envision our brain as an intricate spaceship, and the researchers in the COST Action The neural architecture of consciousness as brilliant engineers determined to crack its inner workings. This spaceship is a good analogy for what we all carry around in our heads.

NeuralArchCon is one of the few large-scale efforts specifically aimed at understanding the relationship between the hardware of the brain and conscious experience. Understanding this link will not only benefit mechanistic explanations of consciousness but may also prove relevant to disorders of consciousness.

Challenges The biggest challenge for the Action, according to Kristian Sandberg, was the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic shortly after the start of the Action. This was particularly challenging for an network like NeuralArchCon, whose success depended on large-scale testing with human participants. Fortunately, the Action was able to restructure its workflows and change plans for researcher mobility to allow time for COVID-19 testing and/or quarantine.

Related StoriesAnother study within the Action focused on the link between mindfulness and nightmares. Higher mindfulness scores correlated with fewer nightmares, suggesting that practices such as meditation and lucid dreaming training could reduce the occurrence of nightmares.

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