Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Institute – Change perception, change your world | Chen Institute

The seminal Libet experiments proposed that consciousness may not be part of the causal role leading to action, and thus that humans might generally make decisions unconsciously. However, the Libet experiments were carried out on arbitrary decisions (e.g., raising the left or right hand for no reason or purpose). This paper demonstrates that the Libet […]

The field of neuroaesthetics has gained in popularity in recent years but also attracted criticism from the perspectives both of the humanities and the sciences. In an effort to consolidate research in the field, we characterize neuroaesthetics as the cognitive neuroscience of aesthetic experience, drawing on long traditions of research in empirical aesthetics on the […]

In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of altered states […]

Much human behavior is driven by rewards. Preclinical neurophysiological and clinical positron emission tomography (PET) studies have implicated striatal phasic dopamine (DA) release as a primary modulator of reward processing. However, the relationship between experimental reward-induced striatal DA release and responsiveness to naturalistic rewards, and therefore functional relevance of these findings, has been elusive. The […]

Emotion regulation has the odd distinction of being a wildly popular construct whose scientific existence is in considerable doubt. In this article, the authors discuss the confusion about whether emotion generation and emotion regulation can and should be distinguished from one another. Authors describe a continuum of perspectives on emotion, and highlight how different (often […]

Neuromonitoring devices to assess level of sedation are now used commonly in many hospital settings. The authors previously reported that electroencephalicgraphic (EEG) spikes frequently occurred after the time of death in patients being neuromonitored at the time of cessation of circulation. In addition to the initial report, end-of-life electrical surges (ELES) have been subsequently documented […]

Evolutionary perspective is critical for understanding human biology, human medicine, and the traits that make human beings unique. One of the crucial characteristics that sets humans apart from other extant species is our cognitive ability, which allows for complex processes including symbolic thought, theory of mind, and syntactical-grammatical language, and is thought to arise from […]

A recent proposal called the Scaffolding Theory of Cognitive Aging (STAC) postulates that functional changes with aging are part of a lifespan process of compensatory cognitive scaffolding that is an attempt to alleviate the cognitive declines associated with aging. Indeed, behavioral studies have shown that aging is associated with both decline as well as preservation […]