Neurobiology of Consciousness

A significant challenge of contemporary neuroscience is to understand how the neurobiology and function of the human brain give rise to conscious experience. One way to address this question is to identify changes in functional architecture that accompany changes in conscious state. Consciousness alterations may occur through pharmacological interventions such as anaesthetic drugs (e.g. Varley et al., 2020; Pappas et al., 2019; Stamatakis et al., 2010) and psychedelics (e.g. Luppi et al., 2021; Varley et al., 2020) but also through trauma such as hypoxic-ischemic injuries or localised traumatic brain injuries (e.g. Varley et al., 2020; Luppi et al., 2019). In order to identify neurobiological signatures of loss of consciousness that are generalisable, we investigate commonalities in functional architecture changes and network dynamics, across a broad range of altered states of consciousness (Luppi et al., 2023).

We have shown that, brain networks (particularly the Default Mode Network) exhibit altered connectivity and complexity and we have proposed these to be critical features of any mechanistic description for loss of consciousness (e.g. Luppi et al., 2019; Varley et al., 2020). We are also interested in quantifying complexity using fractal properties as a measure of proximity to a point of criticality between consciousness and unconsciousness (e.g. Luppi et al., 2021; Varley et al., 2020; Varley et al., 2020). Within these emerging empirical frameworks, projects in this area will utilise fMRI/EEG data to focus on the hierarchical organisation of large-scale brain networks at rest but also importantly during tasks, in patient and healthy volunteer cohorts. Experience in neuroimaging (fMRI or EEG) is required for these projects. Skills in scientific computing and programming (e.g, Linux, Matlab, Python) are essential.