Awareness Research

The simplicity with which we can open our eyes and experience the world around us belies the complexity of the underlying neural mechanisms, which remain incompletely understood. We seek to understand the basis of visual awareness in the brain, and how it breaks down in common neurological disorders such as stroke. In particular, we study how visual attention changes our perception of the world and affects visual awareness, using functional magnetic resonance imaging in combination with visual psychophysics and transcranial magnetic stimulation.