MINDREHAB · Consciousness In basic Science And Neurorehabilitation

This project studies the topic of human consciousness from a multidisciplinary perspective. Human consciousness can be defined as the inner subjective experience of mental states such as perceptions, judgments, thoughts, intentions to act, feelings or desires. These experiences are to be described from a subjective, phenomenal first-person account. On the other hand, cognitive neurosciences explore the neural correlates with respect to brain topology and brain dynamics from an objective third-person account.Despite a great interest in consciousness among cognitive neuroscientists, there are yet no general agreement on definitions or models, and no attempts to draw conclusions from the existing body of work to make progress in the treatment of patients. While it is generally the case that research in cognitive neuroscience has a minimal influence on clinical work in neurorehabilitation, this is very much the case in consciousness studies. Here, so far, there is no direct connection to clinical practiceMindRehab will make use of an integrated approach to find new ways to understand cognitive dysfunctions and to actually rehabilitate patients with cognitive problems after brain injury. This integrated approach, using consciousness studies to create progress in a clinical area, is novel and does not exist as an explicit goal for any other research group in the world. The objective of MindRehab is to integrate three aspects: Philosophy and basic research on consciousness, and clinical work in neurorehabilitation. Furthermore, the objective is to realize a number of research projects leading to novel contributions at the frontier of all three domains. However, contrary to all other current research projects in this field, the emphasis is put on the latter the clinical work.