Con preghiera di diffusione tra tutti i possibili interessati, scusandomi per invii multipli. Cordialmente, Giacomo Aletti

--------------

Nell'ambito dei Reading Group Seminars e del Seminario di Matematica Applicata, in collaborazione col centro ADAMSS e il CIMAB, il giorno lunedì 21 Settembre 2015, alle ore 14.30, nell'Aula Dottorato (primo piano) del Dipartimento di Matematica dell'Universita' degli Studi di Milano, Via C. Saldini, 50, Milano,

"Consciousness and complexity: from theory to practice" Marcello MASSIMINI Dipartimento di Scienze biomediche e cliniche 'Luigi Sacco' Università degli Studi di Milano

Abstract: We usually assess another individual’s level of consciousness based on her/his ability to connect to the surrounding environment and produce appropriate responses. However, conscious experience can be entirely generated within the brain, even in the absence of any interaction with the external world; this happens almost every night, during dreaming, and may occur during certain forms of anesthesia as well as in brain-injured patients who emerge from coma and remain unresponsive. Hence, clinical and physiological evidence advocate the development of brain-based metrics that are independent on both sensory inputs and motor outputs. As an attempt in this direction, an empirical measure of brain complexity has been recently developed based on the electroencephalographic (EEG) response to a direct cortical perturbation with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), the perturbational complexity index (PCI). Based on theoretical postulates, PCI gauges the conjoint presence of integration and information in the human brain, independently of sensory inputs and motor outputs. In a series of experiments, PCI was tested on TMS-evoked potentials recorded in healthy subjects during wakefulness, dreaming, NREM sleep, and different levels of sedation induced by different anesthetic agents (including the dissociative anesthetic ketamine), as well as in patients who emerged from coma and attained a stable diagnosis. Overall, PCI allows a reliable assessment of the level of consciousness at the individual level even in subjects who are fully disconnected from the surrounding environment on both the input and output side. These measurements are scientifically relevant in the context of the information integration theory of consciousness (IITC) and prompt further validation toward the development of a practical diagnostic test.

=================

Reading Group Seminars: The Reading Group Seminars (RGS) are organized within an open community of researchers interested in applying up to date mathematical modeling and data analysis approaches to the study of biological systems. The RGS take place at the Math. Department in Milan (via Saldini). Initiatives and updates are published on the website: http://rgs.mat.unimi.it/.