Into the Gray Zone: Exploring Cognition at the Margins of Consciousness
Title:
Into the Gray Zone: Exploring Cognition at the Margins of Consciousness
Info:
Dr. Adrian Owen
University of Western Ontario
Date:
Friday, March 22, 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM MST
Where:
Biological Sciences, Room CW-410 (Centre Wing)
Abstract:
Disorders of consciousness, including coma, the vegetative state, and the minimally conscious state, are some of the least understood and most ethically troublesome conditions in modern medicine. Decisions to withdraw care focus typically on clinical indicators predicting a poor neurological outcome. No currently accepted clinical measures can determine the likelihood of good functional recovery (allowing sufficient function for independent activities of daily life). In recent years, rapid technological developments in neuroimaging have provided several new methods for revealing thoughts, actions and intentions based solely on the pattern of activity in the brain. These methods are now employed in many research centres to assess residual brain function, detect consciousness and even to communicate with some clinically non-responsive patients who appear comatose, or in a vegetative, or minimally conscious state. These emerging technologies have profound implications for clinical care, diagnosis, prognosis, ethics, and medical-legal decision-making after severe brain injury. In this talk, I will review some of the latest developments in this field, focussing on how and when these the new tools might be integrated into decisions about withdrawal of care.
Bio:
Adrian M. Owen OBE, PhD is currently a Professor in the Departments of Physiology & Pharmacology and Psychology at the University of Western Ontario, Canada and formerly the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Cognitive Neuroscience and Imaging. He also directs the Brain, Mind, and Consciousness program funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). His research combines structural and functional neuroimaging with neuropsychological studies of brain-injured patients and has been published in many of the world’s leading scientific journals, including Science, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet. Dr. Owen has published over 400 peer-reviewed articles and a best-selling popular science book ‘Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death. Dr. Owen was awarded Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen’s Honors List, 2019, for services to scientific research. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2022 and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences in 2023.