M.S./ PH.D PROGRAM IN CONSCIOUSNESS STUDIES
A collaborative Program of the Bhaktivedanta Institute and 
Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani

CONS ZG532:  NEUROSCIENCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
1998 - 1999

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General Information:

Instructor: To be announced. 
Previous Instructor: (Late) Dr. James Newman, Ph.D. Neuropsychologist, Colorado Neurological Institute 

Week 1: What is Consciousness?

Crick, F & Koch, C. (1997) "The Problem of Consciousness". Scientific American special issue: Mysteries of the Mind and Brain. pp. 18-26.

Dennett, D.C. (1987) "Consciousness"; "Consciousness & Causality", The Oxford Companion to the Mind (R. Gregory, Ed.), pp. 159-166.

Hammeroff, S. (1997) "Consciousness Studies: An Overview" (unpublished monograph presented at the University of Arizona Consciousness Studies Program Summer Institute, Flagstaff, AR, August , 1997), pp. 1-10.

Newman, J. (1986) "Historical Introduction" (Chp. 1). The Neuro-psychology of Consciousness (unpublished monograph), pp. 1-17.

Velmans, M. (1997) "What is Consciousness?" (web site monograph, Consciousness Studies Program, University of Arizona: http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/ course - password req'd) pp. 1-12.

Optional:

Horgan, J. (1994) "Can Science Explain Consciousness". Scientific American, July 1994, pp. 88-94 (highlights major trends/controversies and the personalities behind them).

 

Week 2:  The Cognitive Revolution 

Baars, B.J. (1986) "The Cognitive Revolution: The Rise of a Theoretical Psychology" (Chp. 4). The Cognitive Revolution in Psychology. pp 141-177.

Chalmers, D. J. (1997) "The Puzzle of Conscious Experience". Scientific American special issue: Mysteries of the Mind and Brain. pp. 80-86.

Eccles, J.C. (1994) "Recent Theoretical Studies on the Mind-Brain Problem" (Chp. 3). How the Self Controls Its Brain. pp. 27-53.

Gardener, H. (1985) "Reason, Experience and the Status of Philosophy". The Mind's New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution. pp. 49-88.

Raichle, M.E. (1994) "Visualizing the Mind: Strategies of Cognitive Science and Techniques of Modern Brain Imaging".  Scientific American, April 1994.

Optional:

Changeux, J.P. & Dehaene (1989) "Neuronal Models of Cognitive Functions". Cognition, 33, pp. 64-109.(well written, but dense).

Searle, J.R. (1995) "The Mystery of Consciousness". The New York Review of Books, Vol. XLII, No. 17 (Nov 2, 1995). approx 20 pgs.

(Searle provides cogent reviews of recent books by F. Crick, D. Dennett, G. Edelman, R. Penrose &  I. Rosenfield). 

 

Week 3: Consciousness as an Evolving, Adaptive Process 

Baars, B.J. & Newman, J. (1994) "A Neurobiological Interpretation of Global Workspace Theory" (Chp. 9). Consciousness in Philosophy and Cognitive Neuroscience (A. Revonsuo & M. Kamppinen, Eds.). pp. 211-226

James, W. (1890) "The Automaton-Theory" (Chp. 5). The Principles of Psychology, , pp. 128-144.

Luria, A.R. (1973) "Functional Organization and Mental Activity" (Chp. 1). The Working Brain. pp. 13-42.

Newman, J. (1986) "Basics" (Chp 2). The Neuropsychology of Consciousness (unpublished monograph), pp. 2-1 to 2-31.

Posner, M.I. & Tudela, P. (1997) "Imaging Resources". Biological Psychology, 45, pp. 95-107.


Week 4: One, Two or Multiple Consciousness? 

Alkire, M.T., Haier, R.J. Fallon, J.H. & Barker, S.j. (1996) "PET Imaging of Conscious and Unconscious Verbal Memory". Journal of Consciousness Studies, 3(5/6), pp. 448-462.

Kihlstrom, J.F. "The Cognitive Unconscious". Science, 237, pp. 1445-1452.

Haier, R.J. et al. (1992) Regional glucose metabolic changes after learning a complex  visuospatial/motor task: a PET study. Brain Research, 570, pp. 134-143.

Springer, S.P. & Deutsch, G. (1981) "A Historical Overview of Clinical Evidence for Brain Asymmetries" (Chp. 1). Left Brain, Right Brain. pp. 1-23.

Trevarthen, C. (1987) "Split-Brain and the Mind". The Oxford Companion to the Mind (R. Gregory, Ed.), pp. 740-748.

Weiskrantz, L. (1992) "Introduction: Dissociated Issues (Chp. 1),Cowey, A. & Stoerig, P. (1992) "Reflections on Blindsight" (Chp. 2) The Neuropsychology of Consciousness (A.D. Milner & M.D. Rugg, Eds.), pp. 1-14.

Optional:

Libet, B. (1985) "Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action". Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 8, 529-566.(includes several commentaries by philosophers/scientists).

Newman, J. (1990) A Cognitive Perspective on Jungian Typology. pp. 1-27. (published monograph describing the Jungian functions of thinking/feeling; intuition/sensation in terms of "quadrants of specialization" in the cerebral cortex). 


Week 5: Changing Conceptions of Neural Organization

Bradford, H.F. (1987) "Neurotransmitters and Neuromodulators". The Oxford Companion to the Mind (R. Gregory, Ed.), pp. 549-560.

Crick, F. & Koch, C. "Towards a neurobiological theory of consciousness". Seminars in the Neurosciences, 2, pp. 263-275.

Freeman, W.J. (1991) "The Physiology of Perception". Scientific American, February, 1991, pp. 78-85.

Goldman-Rakic, P.S. (1988) "Changing Concepts of Cortical Connectivity: Parallel Distributed Cortical Networks". Neurobiology of Neocortex (P. Rakic & W. Singer, Eds.) p. 177-202.

Greenfield, S.A. (1995) "A Model of the Mind: The Concept of Neuromodulation (Chapter 8). Journey to the Centers of the Mind. pp. 137-162.

Newman, J. "Review: Thalamic Contributions to Attention and Consciousness". Consciousness and Cognition, 4(2), pp. 172-194.

Optional:

Crick, F. (1994) "The Primate Visual System-Initial Stages" (Chp. 10). "The Visual Cortex of Primates" (Chp. 11).  The Astonishing Hypothesis, pp. 121-159.

Crick, F. & Koch, C. (1995) "Are we aware of neural activity in primary visual cortex?". Nature, 375, 121-123.

Puccetti, R. & Dykes, R.W. (1978) "Sensory cortex and the mind-brain problem". Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3, 337-375.


Week 6: The Binding Problem  

Bloom, F.E. (1988) "What is the role of general activating systems in cortical function?".  Neurobiology of Neocortex (P. Rakic & W.Singer, Eds.) pp. 407-421.

Llinas, R., Ribary, U. Joliot, M. & Wang, X-J. (1994), "Content and context in temporal thalamocortical binding". Temporal Coding in the Brain (G. Busaki et al., Eds.) pp. 251-272.

Newman, J. & Baars, B.J. (1993), "A neural attentional model for access to consciousness: A Global Workspace perspective', Concepts in Neuroscience, 4(2), pp. 255-259. 

Stryker, M.P. (1989). "Is grandmother an oscillation?".  Nature, 338, pp. 297-337.

Optional:

Gray, C.M. (1994). "Synchronous oscillations in neuronal systems: mechanisms and functions". Journal of Computational Neuroscience 1, pp. 11-38.

Groenewegen, H.J. & Berendse, H.W. (1994). The specificity of the 'nonspecific' midline and intralaminar thalamic nuclei. Trends in Neuroscience 4(2), pp. 52-58.


Week 7:  Attention & Consciousness


Week 8:  The Role of Corticothalamic Circuits in Attention and Consciousness


Week 9:  The Remembered Present: Consciousness & Memory


Week 10: Volition & Self-Consciousness


Week 11: Beyond Brain: Consciousness as Experience


Week 12: Beyond Consciousness
  

 

Text books

Baars, B.J. (1997), In the Theater of Consciousness, The Workspace of the Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Crick, F. (1994), The Astonishing Hypothesis, The Scientific Search for the Soul, New York: Chas. Scribners Sons.

Damasio, A.R. (1994), Descartes' Error, New York: G.P. Putnam Sons.

Edelman, G.M. (1989), The Remembered Present, A Biological Theory of Consciousness, New York: Basic Books.

LaBerge, D.L. (1995), Attentional processing: The brain's art of mindfulness, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rakic, P. & Singer, W. (eds.) (1988) Neurobiology of Neocortex. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Reference Texts:

Gazzaniga, Micheal S. (Ed-in-Chief)  (1997), The Cognitive Neurosciences, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.

Heilman, K.M. & Valenstein, E.M. (eds.)  (1985), Clinical Neuropsychology, New York: Oxford University Press.

Mesulam, M. (1985), Principles of Behavioral Neurology, Philadelphia: F.A. Davis.

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