Is There a Consciousness in Coma Patients?

This week, Peter talks to Dr. Melanie Boly, a neurologist and neuroscientist who has worked for more than fifteen years in the field of altered states of consciousness such as vegetative state, sleep and anesthesia. In this wide ranging discussion, Peter and Melanie address everything related to her work on consciousness.  They start with some of her early work on resting state as a modulator for detecting subtle stimuli and then get into a discussion on a working definition of consciousness and her work on understanding the neural correlates of consciousness. Melanie is a proponent of the idea that many, if not all, of the fundamental physical correlates of consciousness reside in the posterior part of the brain. Peter and Melanie also discuss Integrated Information Theory (IIT): how it helps us begin to understand consciousness. Last they consider her studies of sleep and how dreaming is not limited to REM sleep.  This interesting discussion straddles theoretical work and practical clinical applications of brain imaging. For more info on the Neurosalience podcast and the guests, visit: https://www.ohbmbrainmappingblog.com/