University of Sussex
the
Sackler
Centre
for Consciousness Science
Understanding the biological basis of
conscious experience is one the great
challenges for 21st-century science, with
important implications for the diagnosis
and treatment of many psychiatric and
neurological disorders.
Founded in 2010 with a generous
donation from the Dr. Mortimer and
Theresa Sackler Foundation, the
Sackler Centre for Consciousness
Science provides a unique
multidisciplinary focus generating
cutting-edge research into the
basic science of consciousness,
and its clinical application. Truly
interdisciplinary in nature, the Centre
brings together researchers from
psychology, psychiatry, computer
science and AI, mathematics,
neuroscience, cognitive science and
philosophy to shed new light on one of
our oldest mysteries.
Anil Seth
Hugo Critchley
Co-Directors, Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science
The experience of body ownership is fundamental
to our sense of self. Here, Anil Seth demonstrates
Sackler research on illusions of body ownership
using novel combinations of augmented reality and
3D modelling. This research is unravelling the neural
basis of self-consciousness in health, and of its
breakdown in psychiatric dissociations.
Consciousness is at once the most familiar and the most
mysterious feature of our existence. Long considered
the exclusive preserve of philosophy, over the past two
decades a new and productive science of consciousness
has taken shape. Unravelling the biological basis
of consciousness will not only lead to a wholly new
understanding of our place in nature, but also promises
major advances in the treatment of psychiatric and
neurological disorders.
At the leading edge of these efforts, key questions being
investigated by Sackler Centre researchers include:
What are the dynamical mechanisms
underlying consciousness?
Conscious experiences are simultaneously
unified and composed of many different
parts; think of the experience of seeing
a coffee cup on a table. Based on this
insight, we are combining mathematical
and experimental methods to develop new
ways of measuring consciousness in health
and in disease. These methods are being
tested on data recorded during anaesthesia
and sleep, as well as on data reflecting
severe disorders of consciousness following
traumatic brain injury.
How do bodily processes affect our
awareness of self and world?
We are pioneering new research untangling
the complex interactions between basic
physiological processes such as heartbeat
regulation, subjective emotional feelings,
and conscious experiences of the
external world. This work on ‘interoceptive
awareneness’ is opening new avenues to
understanding psychiatric disorders rooted
in abnormal body perception.
Why does the world (and ourselves)
seem real – most of the time?
It is easy to take for granted the subjective
reality of the world and of the self, but this
sense of reality is disrupted in psychiatric
dissociations involving an unreal sense
of self (depersonalisation) or the world
(derealisation). Combining brain imaging
with new theory and experiments based on
augmented reality, we are determining how
conscious ‘presence’ – and its absence
– arise in the brain. This theory-driven
research is providing a powerful platform
for studying a range of neuropsychiatric
disorders including autism epilepsy,
somatisation and psychosis.
Dr Jamie Ward
What is the biological basis of
synaesthesia?
People with synaesthesia have unusual
‘extra’ experiences – for example, the letter
‘A’ may evoke an experience of neon pink.
These cases provide a unique window
onto the neural mechanisms of conscious
perception, which we study using brain
imaging and behavioural experiments.
We are also investigating what synaesthetes
can do that the rest of us cannot.
What are the limits of unconscious
processing?
Much of the brain’s activity carries on
without any accompanying conscious
experience, but the distinction between
conscious and unconscious processing has
remained mysterious. We are developing
new combinations of psychophysics and
brain imaging to reveal the full power of
unconscious cognition, for example in
learning complex sequences of stimuli.
What underlies hypnotic and meditative
states?
The reality of hypnotic and meditative states
is now well established, yet their underlying
mechanisms remain unknown. We are
investigating whether hypnotic suggestion
can modulate perception of the world as
well as beliefs, and how these states may
be generated.
Consciousness
across disciplines
Collaborations
Understanding consciousness requires a
synergy of methods spanning disciplines in
the sciences and humanities. The Sackler
Centre continues the strong interdisciplinary
tradition at the University of Sussex in
promoting these interactions, providing a
unique context for groundbreaking research.
The Centre straddles the Schools of
Informatics and Engineering, Psychology,
and the Brighton and Sussex Medical
School, and also has strong connections
with Philosophy and Life Sciences. These
interactions generate important new
insights and ideas, and also provide critical
research facilities in brain imaging, brain
stimulation, virtual and augmented reality,
and high-performance computation. The
Centre is at the heart of Sussex’s Mind
and Brain research theme, one of six
interdisciplinary research themes defining
the University’s research agenda nationally
and internationally.
Sackler Centre researchers actively
collaborate with a wide network of
internationally renowned groups including
other Sackler Centres in the UK and the
USA. We lead the primary scientific effort
in a large-scale EU project aimed at
understanding how people interact with
data (www.ceeds-project.eu), we engage
with researchers in Cambridge and Liege
in our work on patients with disorders of
consciousness, and in 2012 we hosted
the primary international scientific meeting
on consciousness, the Association for the
Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC),
attracting more than 400 researchers
across disciplines (www.theassc.org).
www.sussex.ac.uk/research/
mindandbrain
Making consciousness science clinically relevant
is fundamental to the Sackler Centre, which is
directly linked to Brighton and Sussex Medical
School. Here, Hugo Critchley and the Psychiatry
Group combine patient studies and advanced theorydriven neuroscience to provide new perspectives on
psychiatric symptoms and their management.
Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science
University of Sussex
Brighton, BN1 9QJ
www.sussex.ac.uk/sackler
Twitter: @sacklercentre
Directors:
Anil Seth
Hugo Critchley
Faculty:
Ron Chrisley
Zoltan Dienes
Neil Harrison
Owen Holland
Ryota Kanai
Nick Medford
Romi Nijhawan
Ryan Scott
Natasha Sigala
Jamie Ward
Assistants:
David Schwartzman
Hazelle Woodhurst
Sackler Centre research is
funded by the Dr Mortimer
and Theresa Sackler
Foundation, with additional
support from sources
including the Engineering
and Physical Sciences
Research Council (EPSRC),
Medical Research Council
(MRC), Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC)
and the EU.