Organisation profile

The Brain and Consciousness Research Center (BCRC) is unique to Taiwan in several respects: (i) It integrates cognitive neuroscience, experimental psychology, and the science of consciousness with the pedagogy, research, and clinical practice of the three hospitals that compose the TMU network including, but by no means limited to, the Departments of Neurology, Psychiatry, Radiology, Nuclear Medicine, and Anesthesiology. (ii) It integrates 1st person, subjective methodologies with 3rd person, inter-subjective techniques in order to understand what patients experience and how these conscious experiences are realized in virtue of the brain’s activity, both neural correlates and neural predispositions. (iii) It integrates psychometrics with a host of technologies that provide excellent temporal (e.g., EEG), spatial (e.g., MRI & fMRI), brain stimulation (e.g., TMS & tDCS), and biochemical (MRS & PET) data, in order to make substantive contributions to translational medicine. (iv) It collaborates with TMU’s several Colleges and hospitals, targeting issues in Translational Medicine, in order to expedite the discovery of new diagnostic tools and treatments. (v) In order to encompass all aspects of consciousness, including its relatedness to non-conscious mental states, the Institute integrates investigations into levels of consciousness (e.g., sleep, unresponsive wakefulness syndrome [UWS], mild traumatic brain injury [MTBI], and anesthesia) with investigations into the contents of consciousness (e.g., Major Depressive Disorder [MDD], Dementia, Schizophrenia, and Monothematic Delusions). And, (vi) it integrates scientific research on moral behavior, in both healthy subjects (e.g., religion)and patient populations (e.g., dementia), with philosophical research in ethics, thereby positioning us to contribute to the burgeoning field of neuroethics, a nascent field that applies what we are learning from neuroscience to improved understanding of free will, moral and legal culpability, religious conviction,human values, as well as conditions under which the capacity for selfhood is lost.