Dr Daniel Bor
|
I am one of the principal investigators in the Consciousness and Cognition Lab. I am a senior lecturer (Associate Professor equivalent) at Queen Mary, University of London, and a visiting scientist at the department of Psychology, Cambridge University. My part of the lab primarily explores brain-scanning data with mathematical tools (especially information theory) to research a range of basic and clinical science questions. From a basic science perspective, we are particularly interested in how the brain generates consciousness. From a clinical science perspective, we are interested in how the brain changes in old age and dementia, and what can be done to slow these negative effects. I am the author of The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning, a popular science book on consciousness. My popular science writing has also appeared in Scientific American, New Scientist, Salon, Slate, Wired UK, the BBC and others. I received a BA in psychology and philosophy from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience from University of Cambridge.
|
Publications
Popular Science Books
30-Second Brain: The 50 Most Mind-blowing Ideas in Neuroscience, Each Explained in Half a Minute
Are we all at the mercy of our brain chemistry? Do you think that the amygdala and the hippocampus are fantastical sea monsters? What can an MRI scan tell us? Could you explain to dinner-party guests why we don’t giggle when we tickle ourselves? 30-Second Brain is here to fill your mind with the science of exactly what’s happening inside your head. Using no more than two pages, 300 words and an illustration, this is the quickest way to understand the wiring and function of the most complex and intricate mechanism in the human body. Discover how the networks of 90 billion nerve cells work together to produce perception, action, cognition and emotion. Explore how your brain defines your personality, and what it gets up to while you are asleep. Illustrated with mind-bending graphics and supported by biographies of pioneers in the field of neuroscience, it’s the book to get your grey matter thinking about your grey matter. |
The Ravenous Brain
Consciousness is our gateway to experience: it enables us to recognize Van Gogh s starry skies, be enraptured by Beethoven s Fifth, and stand in awe of a snowcapped mountain. Yet consciousness is subjective, personal, and famously difficult to examine: philosophers have for centuries declared this mental entity so mysterious as to be impenetrable to science. In The Ravenous Brain, neuroscientist Daniel Bor departs sharply from this historical view, and builds on the latest research to propose a new model for how consciousness works. Bor argues that this brain-based faculty evolved as an accelerated knowledge gathering tool. Consciousness is effectively an idea factory that choice mental space dedicated to innovation, a key component of which is the discovery of deep structures within the contents of our awareness. This model explains our brains ravenous appetite for information and in particular, its constant search for patterns. Why, for instance, after all our physical needs have been met, do we recreationally solve crossword or Sudoku puzzles? Such behavior may appear biologically wasteful, but, according to Bor, this search for structure can yield immense evolutionary benefits it led our ancestors to discover fire and farming, pushed modern society to forge ahead in science and technology, and guides each one of us to understand and control the world around us. But the sheer innovative power of human consciousness carries with it the heavy cost of mental fragility. Bor discusses the medical implications of his theory of consciousness, and what it means for the origins and treatment of psychiatric ailments, including attention-deficit disorder, schizophrenia, manic depression, and autism. All mental illnesses, he argues, can be reformulated as disorders of consciousness a perspective that opens up new avenues of treatment for alleviating mental suffering. A controversial view of consciousness, The Ravenous Brain links cognition to creativity in an ingenious solution to one of science s biggest mysteries. |
Links
Magazine Feature Articles:
(Extended book review of) Brain: The Story of You by David Eagleman, in Nature 2015
Watching Your Mind in Action. New Scientist 2013
When do we become truly conscious? Slate 2012
It’s just a gut instinct, but Blink got it wrong. Wired 2012
The Mechanics of Mind Reading. Scientific American Mind 2010
For a full list of general audience articles, radio interviews, talks, etc. see my website
(Extended book review of) Brain: The Story of You by David Eagleman, in Nature 2015
Watching Your Mind in Action. New Scientist 2013
When do we become truly conscious? Slate 2012
It’s just a gut instinct, but Blink got it wrong. Wired 2012
The Mechanics of Mind Reading. Scientific American Mind 2010
For a full list of general audience articles, radio interviews, talks, etc. see my website
Selected Publications
For a full list of publications, visit my scholar page at:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=RFyNGg0AAAAJ&hl=en
- Luppi AI, Mediano PAM, Rosas FE, Holland N, Fryer TD, O’Brien JT, Rowe JB, Menon DK, Bor D, Stamatakis EA (2022) A synergistic core for human brain evolution and cognition. Nature Neuroscience 25 (6). 771-782
- Mediano PAM, Rosas FE, Bor D, Seth AK, Barrett AB (2022) The strength of weak integrated information theory. Trends in cognitive sciences 26: 646-655
- Mediano PAM, Ikkala A, Kievit RA, Jagannathan SR, Varley TF, Stamatakis EA, Bekinschtein TA, Bor D (2021) Fluctuations in Neural Complexity During Wakefulness Relate To Conscious Level and Cognition. bioRxiv: 2021.09.23.461002 (Currently under revision in J Neuro)
- Bor D, Rothen N, Schwartzman DJ, Clayton S, Seth, AK (2014) Adults Can Be Trained to Acquire Synesthetic Experiences. Nature: Scientific Reports. 4(7089)
- Bor D, Duncan J, Owen AM (2003). Encoding strategies dissociate prefrontal activity from working memory demand. Neuron. 37(2): 361-367.
For a full list of publications, visit my scholar page at:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=RFyNGg0AAAAJ&hl=en