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Opportunities and challenges for a maturing science of consciousness

Nature Human Behaviour volume 3, pages 104–107 (2019)Cite this article

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Scientific research on consciousness is critical to multiple scientific, clinical, and ethical issues. The growth of the field could also be beneficial to several areas including neurology and mental health research. To achieve this goal, we need to set funding priorities carefully and address problems such as job creation and potential media misrepresentation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France

    Matthias Michel

  2. Department of Psychology and Beckman Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, USA

    Diane Beck

  3. Department of Philosophy, New York University, New York, New York, USA

    Ned Block

  4. Department of Neurology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Hal Blumenfeld

  5. Philosophy Program, LaGuardia Community College, The City University of New York, Long Island City, New York, USA

    Richard Brown

  6. School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    David Carmel

  7. Department of Psychology and Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York, USA

    Marisa Carrasco

  8. Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    Mazviita Chirimuuta

  9. Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

    Marvin Chun

  10. Center for Cognition & Neurosciences, Université libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Axel Cleeremans

  11. Chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology, College de France, Paris, France

    Stanislas Dehaene

  12. Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), INSERM, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, NeuroSpin center, Gif/Yvette, France

    Stanislas Dehaene

  13. Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK

    Stephen M. Fleming & Chris Frith

  14. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London, UK

    Patrick Haggard

  15. Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, New York, USA

    Biyu J. He

  16. All Souls College and Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Cecilia Heyes

  17. The Brain and Mind Institute, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada

    Melvyn A. Goodale

  18. School of Philosophy, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK

    Liz Irvine

  19. Department of Decoded Neurofeedback, Computational Neuroscience Laboratories, Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International, Kyoto, Japan

    Mitsuo Kawato

  20. Department of Psychology, University of Durham, Durham, UK

    Robert Kentridge

  21. Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York, United States

    Jean-Remi King

  22. Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt, Germany

    Jean-Remi King

  23. Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Robert T. Knight

  24. Brain and Consciousness group (ENS, EHESS, CNRS), Département d’Études Cognitives, École Normale Supérieure - PSL Research University, Paris, France

    Sid Kouider

  25. Amsterdam Brain and Cognition, Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Victor Lamme

  26. School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel

    Dominique Lamy

  27. Department of Psychology and Brain Research Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA

    Hakwan Lau

  28. Department of Psychology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Hakwan Lau

  29. State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, HKU, Hong Kong, China

    Hakwan Lau

  30. Coma Science Group, GIGA Consciousness, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Steven Laureys

  31. Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York, USA

    Joseph LeDoux

  32. Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Ying-Tung Lin

  33. Department of Sociology, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Kayuet Liu

  34. State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, New York, USA

    Stephen L. Macknik & Susana Martinez-Conde

  35. Center for Consciousness Science, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

    George A. Mashour

  36. Department of Neurology, NYU School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA

    Lucia Melloni

  37. Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

    Lisa Miracchi

  38. Department of Philosophy and Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Myrto Mylopoulos

  39. PICNIC Lab ICM INSERM, U1127, Paris, France

    Lionel Naccache

  40. The Brain & Mind Institute, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada

    Adrian M. Owen

  41. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Richard E. Passingham

  42. Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

    Luiz Pessoa

  43. Department of Bioengineering, University of California, Riverside, California, USA

    Megan A. K. Peters

  44. School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Dobromir Rahnev

  45. Psychology and Biology, Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA

    Tony Ro

  46. Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, New York, USA

    David Rosenthal

  47. Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

    Yuka Sasaki

  48. Laboratoire Psychologie de la Perception, Université Paris Descartes, CNRS, Paris, France

    Claire Sergent

  49. Instituto de Cálculo, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Guillermo Solovey

  50. Department of Neurology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA

    Nicholas D. Schiff

  51. Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Anil Seth

  52. Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, INSERM, École Normale Supérieure - PSL Research University, Paris, France

    Catherine Tallon-Baudry

  53. Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Marco Tamietto

  54. Department of Psychology, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    Marco Tamietto

  55. Psychology Department, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, USA

    Frank Tong

  56. Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Simon van Gaal

  57. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands

    Alexandra Vlassova

  58. Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

    Takeo Watanabe

  59. Department of Philosophy, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

    Josh Weisberg

  60. Institute of Philosophy of Mind and Cognition, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Karen Yan

  61. Department of System Neuroscience, National Institute for Physiological Sciences, Okazaki, Japan

    Masatoshi Yoshida

Authors
  1. Matthias Michel
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  2. Diane Beck
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  3. Ned Block
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  4. Hal Blumenfeld
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  5. Richard Brown
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  6. David Carmel
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  7. Marisa Carrasco
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  8. Mazviita Chirimuuta
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  9. Marvin Chun
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  10. Axel Cleeremans
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  11. Stanislas Dehaene
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  12. Stephen M. Fleming
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  13. Chris Frith
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  14. Patrick Haggard
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  15. Biyu J. He
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  16. Cecilia Heyes
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  19. Mitsuo Kawato
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  20. Robert Kentridge
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  21. Jean-Remi King
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  22. Robert T. Knight
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  24. Victor Lamme
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  38. Adrian M. Owen
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  39. Richard E. Passingham
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  40. Luiz Pessoa
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  42. Dobromir Rahnev
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  43. Tony Ro
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  44. David Rosenthal
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  45. Yuka Sasaki
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  55. Takeo Watanabe
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  56. Josh Weisberg
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  57. Karen Yan
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  58. Masatoshi Yoshida
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Contributions

The manuscript was written primarily by M.M., H.L., and S.M.F., after taking into account multiple rounds of comments from all co-authors, who also jointly approved the final version of the manuscript. Except for first author M.M., authorship list is in alphabetical order.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Matthias Michel, Stephen M. Fleming or Hakwan Lau.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Michel, M., Beck, D., Block, N. et al. Opportunities and challenges for a maturing science of consciousness. Nat Hum Behav 3, 104–107 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0531-8

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