Symposium: How Brain Dynamics shape human experience

Understanding how dynamic patterns of brain activity give rise to subjective experience remains a central challenge in neuroscience. This symposium brings together four researchers who investigate the neural underpinnings of consciousness across various states, including wakefulness, sleep, and pathological conditions. By integrating theoretical frameworks with clinical applications, the session aims to elucidate the relationship between global brain dynamics and phenomenology.

Jacobo Sitt will introduce the general topic and weave the presenters talks in between.

Tristan Bekinschtein will present the brain signatures used in real world experiments with portable EEG, highlight the power of collecting hundreds of sessions on breathworks and also show the robustness of doing dose-response psychedelic work in Argentina. The combined use of experience tracing and EEG allows for a framework for neurophenomenology that is exemplified here by the brain dynamics of altered consciousness.

Vincent Taschereau-Dumouchel uses real-time fMRI and decoded neurofeedback to modulate brain patterns and subjective states actively. By decoding brain activity linked to specific feelings (like pain or fear) and feeding it back as neurofeedback, his approach can change underlying physiological processes and potentially reduce the felt intensity of these experiences without any conscious effort. This offers causal evidence tying brain dynamics to phenomenology and suggests novel interventions for clinical conditions (e.g. chronic pain, anxiety). It exemplifies the power of brain–machine interface techniques to illuminate mind–brain relationships.

Anna Ciaunica will explore how the minimal self — our basic sense of being an embodied subject — emerges from brain-body interactions beginning in early life. Drawing on studies with preterm infants and individuals experiencing depersonalization, she shows how disruptions in interoceptive integration can weaken the sense of self. Her work uses EEG and heartbeat-evoked potentials to highlight how neural responses to bodily signals underpin the coherence of selfhood. This developmental and translational perspective emphasizes that consciousness is not only brain-based but deeply rooted in the dynamics of embodied existence.

These four talks collectively showcase an innovative synthesis of theoretical and clinical neuroscience. The session offers an accessible overview of how brain dynamics across multiple scales link to subjective experience, making it relevant to neuroscientists across subfields. Emphasizing novelty and interdisciplinarity, it demonstrates that combining cognitive experiments, clinical studies, and neurotechnology can advance our understanding of consciousness and inspire new strategies to improve conscious states.