Transdisciplinary Resarch on Consciousness

Hemispherotomy is a maximally invasive neurosurgical procedure indicated as a last resort for certain individuals with catastrophic drug-resistant epilepsy. It results in the complete isolation of one hemisphere from the rest of the central nervous system. Such an isolated hemisphere raises the question of its state of consciousness and inspires a debate on "islands of awareness". Together with other researchers / colleagues at the Department of Epileptology, Tobias, Markus and Theodor have developed approaches to investigate this hemisphere using advanced network modeling and innovative fMRI paradigms. The results require neurophilosophical expertise and are therefore contextualized and discussed by Markus Gabriel and Charlotte Gauvry. This collaboration shows once again how fruitful transdisciplinary research projects can be. What exactly this means will hopefully be published soon...

Markus Gabriel is Professor of Epistemology, Modern and Contemporary Philosophy and Director of the International Center for Philosophy at the University of Bonn. Charlotte Gauvry is a postdoctoral researcher at the International Center for Philosophy, focusing on the philosophy of neuroscience and consciousness.

Charlotte and Theodor have organized the Bonn Conference on "Detecting unusual consciousness" together with Uwe Peters, which will took place on September 27-28 at the International Center for Philosophy and the Department of Epileptology.

Lennart visits Montréal for OHBM 2023

Lennart visited the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM)'s Annual Meeting in Montréal, Canada, this month. It was his second stint at an OHBM conference, where he presented his most recent work about the capabilities of humans and Artificial Intelligence for lesion detection. The diverse OHBM community always offers an excellent opportunity to meet old and new colleagues and friends from across the globe. Besides the many exciting talks and conversations, he also found time to explore and enjoy this wonderful city, such as the view of from Mount Royal at night.

Transdisciplinary Research Award for Thomas Schultz and Theodor Rüber

Prof. Dr. Thomas Schultz

Dr. Theodor Rüber

Prof. Dr. Thomas Schultz from the Institute II for Computer Science at the University of Bonn and Theodor have jointly been awarded the Transdisciplinary Research Prize "Modelling for Life and Health".

The Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) "Modeling" and "Life & Health" at the University of Bonn aim to promote highly innovative, transdisciplinary research projects that address new and relevant questions at the interface between mathematics or computer science and the research topics of "Life and Health" or aim to develop new tools that push the boundaries of existing research questions in this area.

The innovative and interdisciplinary nature of the project submitted for application was the most important requirement for funding. Thomas Schultz and Theodor Rüber's project "Parcellation-free modeling of brain networks for presurgical evaluation of people with epilepsy" will attempt to identify epileptic networks using innovative imaging methods. It is their hope that this will lead to improved presurgical diagnosis for people with epilepsy who qualify for epilepsy surgery. The prize money is 120,000€ and Thomas and Theodor will advertise a PhD position for it.