Synesthesia

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In synesthesia, information between the senses is blended. Letters might trigger the experience of colors, or sounds the experience of taste, or many other combinations. My laboratory has tested and verified over 20,000 synesthetes, and we are working to understand how it sheds light on consciousness, from the genetics to the neural networks.

Time perception

brainclockgears

To understand the neural mechanisms of time perception, David's lab combines psychophysical, behavioral, and computational approaches to address the relationship between the timing of perception and the underlying neural signals.

Neurolaw

lawbook David is founder and co-director of the Center for Science and Law, which studies how new discoveries in neuroscience can navigate the way we make laws, punish criminals, and develop rehabilitation.

Sensory Substitution

VAC

Can sensory data be fed through unusual sensory channels? And can the brain learn to extract the meaning of such information streams?

Yes and yes. Sensory substitution is a non-invasive technique for circumventing the loss of one sense by feeding its information through another channel.

Other Projects

Other projects in our lab include the use of real-time feedback neuroimaging to break drug addiction, intervention programs in high-violence neighborhoods, word aversion, illusory motion reversal, the flash lag effect, a theory of cerebellar glomeruli, extracellular calcium as a neurotransmitter, and dopamine and human decision-making. Click to learn more.

brainexplorers

Deep brain recording in humans

DBS

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) targets deep nuclei in the brain to help with Parkinsons Disease or tremor. During surgery, we have a window to measure the responses of single neurons in the human brain. While the recording electrodes are in place, we present sights and sounds to a patient while the responses of the neurons are recorded. Find out more.

From the Blog

Why I am a Possibilian

Our ignorance of the cosmos is too vast to commit to atheism, and yet we know too much to commit to a particular religion. A third position, agnosticism, is often an uninteresting stance in which a person simply questions whether his traditional religious story is true or not true. I call myself a possibilian. Find out why.
Schwarzenegger on Incognito

What a wonderful shot of caffeine it was to find my childhood hero lauding my book in the New York Times.
Q & A in New Scientist magazine

Read a Q&A with David in New Scientist to find out his ideas and advice to young scientists.
Silicon Immortality: Downloading Consciousness into Computers

Well before we understand how brains work, we may find ourselves able to digitally copy the brain's structure and able to download the conscious mind into a computer. What are the possibilities and challenges?

In other news...

Emily Blunt reads for the Sum audio book

Hear the actress Emily Blunt (Young Victoria, Devil Wears Prada) read "The Cast" from Sum. She is one of the dozens of terrific actors who read for the audio book.

6 Ways the Internet Will Save Civilization

Read David's new article in Wired magazine: "Apocalyse? No. Six Ways the Internet Will Save Civilization"

Sum named Book of the Year by New Scientist

Sum was the only book of fiction in New Scientist magazine's selection of Best Books of 2009.

Learn more about the Science

Antiphospholipid Syndrome

Far to the left-field of my normal research, I'm pursuing a new hypothesis: whether there is a connection between people who get envenomated by the asp caterpillar, and the acquisition of antiphospholipid syndrome (APS)