Attention and EEG Dynamics - a Consciousness Research Perspective

Topic of Discussion:
Attention is a ubiquitous phenomenon and EEG is a widely used neurophysiological tool to evaluate this. With advancements in interdisciplinary neuroscientific research, we have started to gain new insights into how our day-to-day experiences are constructed by brain’s predictive functions. Yet, there are gaps in the application of this knowledge in EEG-based research on attention. The current talk is a humble attempt to convey few of these aspects from the point of view of a Consciousness Research Scientist. It will include an introduction to human attention, a briefing on brain’s predictive processes, what sleep teaches us about attention, few under-reported issues in current EEG signal processing, and insights from few explorations from our lab. Overall, the talk aims to convey the importance of having a whole-brain perspective for EEG-based research so that the technological advances in EEG-research can be better used for applications like brain training.

Speaker Info:
Dr. Arun is a Neuroscientist with Medical background, doing Neurophysiology research and associated technological innovations for the past 12 years. Currently, he is a Scientist at Center for Consciousness Studies (CCS), Dept of Neurophysiology, NIMHANS. He did MBBS (Medical College, Kottayam) and then PhD in Neurophysiology (NIMHANS, Bangalore). His Ph.D. study was titled “Examination of aberrant neural synchrony in Schizophrenia: a multi-modal EEG, fMRI and polysomnography study”. Since then, he has been involved in many research projects exploring the capabilities of EEG, ERP, Polysomnography and fMRI techniques exploring neurophysiological markers for other mental disorders (like epilepsy, ADHD, autism, depression, dementia, parkinson’s, coma, etc.), studying effect of music on stress reduction and creativity, studying brain dynamics in meditators and trained musicians, EEG-based cognitive evaluation among infants and developing novel ways to examine brain dynamics during sleep and wake states. He has been involved in the R&D of novel EEG devices (EpiDome & x-Amp), neuromodulation techniques (axxStim), novel saline EEG electrode cap (BESS Rapid Cap), codeveloped novel ERP paradigm (ANGEL), EEG- based signal processing algorithms, etc., working alongside Industry engineers and Academia scientists, through multi-institute government funded projects for last 7 years. Currently working on development of novel closed-loop EEG based brain-training inspired from mediation and electrical neuromodulation (tACS, tVNS). He has given >55 talks at national EEG and sleep workshops, >24 international publications and >47 conference presentations. He is a subject expert in PhD DAC committees and Review Editor for multiple international journals.