01/13/22: The Sleep Science Podcast recently sat down with WISC Researcher Prof. Chiara Cirelli to discuss her research, the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, and the importance of studying sleep in different species using a variety of methods. You can listen to the entire interview here.
12/10/21: WISC Director of Research Giulio Tononi has just been recognized on the Institute for Scientific Information™ list of Highly Cited Researchers 2021. You can read more about Dr. Tononi and the other highly cited researchers in this press release from UW research.
11/17/21: Patients with idiopathic hypersomnia (IH) never feel rested, despite sleeping as many as 11 hours in one day. In this short documentary, Science Magazine interviews WISC researcher Prof. Chiara Cirelli about the function of sleep and how sleep disorders like IH affect our ability to learn.
10/18/21: Research on brain organoids has the potential to both further our understanding of the human brain and to spur advances in the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders and neurological injuries. But are these organoids conscious? If so, is it ethical to conduct research on them? In this podcast episode of BBC Crowd Science, Marnie Chesterton and Sam Baker sit down with WISC Director Giulio Tononi and others to discuss scientific and ethical issues that arise in the context of cutting-edge research on organoids.
8/25/21: Can we measure consciousness in unresponsive patients with brain injuries? If so, how? In this article, MIT Technology Review’s Russ Jaskalian discusses CSC collaborator Dr. Marcello Massimini’s pioneering work on measuring consciousness and how it relates to the integrated information theory of consciousness.
8/25/21: In this article in the MIT Technology Review, Dr. Christof Koch discusses the integrated information theory of consciousness, its panpsychist implications and how such implications can be tested.
4/25/21: In this short article, author David Crookes interviews researcher Johannes Kleiner about panpsychism and about using the tools of the integrated information theory to understand whether systems are conscious.
4/17/21: In this article, author Eric Beyer discusses whether artificial consciousness is possible and what discusses WISC Director Giulio Tononi’s integrated information theory of consciousness has to say about the issue.
4/5/21: In the article ‘Minds without brains?’, author John Farrell of Mind Matters News discusses concerns about AI and what IIT has to say about the possibility of artificial consciousness.
4/4/21: A new article in Mind Matters News discusses IIT and Panpsychism.
3/15/21: In this article in Discover Magazine, Dr. Christof Koch of the Allen Institute for Brain Sciences provides an overview of the integrated information theory and discusses the theory’s predictions and virtues.
2/16/21: Discover Magazine discusses Panpsychism and the integrated information theory of consciousness in this article.
2/1/21: In this episode of Central Time, WISC Medical Director Dr. David Plante speaks to Wisconsin Public Radio about how the pandemic has affected our sleeping habits.
1/23/21: In ‘What is consciousness? Scientists compete to find out,‘ Bloomberg writer Andreas Kluth discusses WISC Director Giulio Tononi’s integrated information theory of consciousness and the role it is playing in the Templeton World Charity Foundation’s Adversarial Research Collaboration (ARC).
11/17/20: This article in The Economist discusses the integrated information theory, a theory of consciousness developed by Giulio Tononi (WISC Director of Research), in the context of the Templeton World Charity Foundation’s ARC initiative.
11/10/20: Dr. David Plante (WISC Medical Director) and collaborator Dr. Reid Alisch (Neurological Surgery) have been selected as finalists for the 2020 WARF Innovation Awards for their development of a molecular sleep test based on epigenetic discovery. In this interview, Drs. Plante and Alisch give a brief summary of their new technology and its potential impact.
8/1/20: Dr. David Plante has won the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation’s Strategic Research Award for his research on the role of epigenetic modification of Pax8 in Hypersomnia.
06/22/20: In this NPR interview on Milwaukee’s WUWM , WISC Medical Director David Plante discusses the pandemic’s impact on our sleep habits. Interview from 13:38-34:10.
06/17/20: The American Academy for the Advancement of Science has published this release on our recent study involving slow wave sleep in split-brain patients. The study, which was a collaboration between the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca and WISC, advances our understanding of the way that slow waves propagate in the human brain during sleep.
5/3/20: This brief article by Mind Matters News discusses some of the interesting implications of integrated information theory, developed by WISC Director of Research Giulio Tononi.
5/2/20: The Technology Times has done a short article on what the integrated information theory, developed by WISC Director Giulio Tononi, can tell us about the possibility of machine consciousness.
4/29/20: This article in the New Scientist and this short piece by the Byte discuss some of the interesting implications of the integrated information theory of consciousness, developed by WISC Director of Research Giulio Tononi.
4/25/20: The Templeton World Charity Foundation has begun their Accelerating Research on Consciousness initiative, an initiative that aims to stimulate progress in the field of consciousness research by assessing the major theories of consciousness. In this article in the BBC’s Science Focus Magazine, author Christian Jarrett discusses these theories, one of which is the integrated information theory developed by WISC Director of Research Giulio Tononi.
01/25/20: In this article from Prospect Magazine, author Philip Ball discusses the application of the integrated information theory, developed by WISC Director of Research Giulio Tononi and collaborators, to the question of whether machines can be conscious.
01/17/20: The trailer for the new Arte documentary ‘Losing Sleep’ has been made available here. The documentary, set to be released in early 2020, features an interview with WISC researcher Prof. Chiara Cirelli about her research on sleep and the Synaptic Homeostasis Hypothesis.
12/23/19: In this episode of the Wisconsin Public Radio program Central Time, Dr. Amandine Valomon discusses fearful dreams and some theories of why we have them. (Interview from 00:14:33 – 00:22:00)
11/7/19: In their new episode on sleep, the Science VS podcast interviews WISC Assistant Director of Research Brady Riedner on the phenomenon of ‘local sleep.’
10/19/19: This article in Scientific American discusses WISC researchers Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi’s recent publication in Science, which links the need for sleep with synaptic function.
8/27/19: In ‘Better sleep in space?,’ Channel 3000’s News 3 highlights the Philips SmartSleep Deep Sleep Headband, a sleep-optimizing device that will soon be tested on astronauts in space.
8/19/19: In this television interview with NBC15’s The Morning Show, WISC Assistant Director Stephanie Jones talks about the importance of sleep for children and teens as they transition out of their summer schedule and begin the new school year.
8/11/2019: In this video, Spectrum TV’s Kathryn Larson interviews WISC Assistant Director Stephanie Jones on the Philips SmartSleep Deep Sleep Headband.
7/6/2019: In this article, the Wisconsin State Journal sits down with WISC Assistant Directors Stephanie Jones and Brady Riedner to discuss the new Philips SmartSleep Deep Sleep Headband, a device designed by WISC researchers to make sleep more efficient by promoting restorative, slow wave activity.
7/1/2019:This Science Dailyarticle discusses a recently published study by postdoctoral researcher Giovanna Spano that provides further support for the Synaptic Homeostasis Hypothesis.
2/21/2019: In this article, Sally McGrane of Medium talks with WISC researcher Dr. Benjamin Baird and others about lucid dreaming and the future of research in the field.
4/15/2019: In this short article, Amelia Kaye of the The Statesman discusses WISC Director Giulio Tononi’s Mind/Brain Lecture at Stony Brook University.
4/10/2019: In ‘A researcher’s three-peat,‘ The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) Foundation interviews WISC Medical Director David Plante on winning three separate AASM awards over the course of his career.
3/6/2019: In ‘Neuroscience Readies for a Showdown Over Consciousness Ideas,’Quanta Magazine‘s Philip Ball discusses the major competitor theories of consciousness, including the integrated information theory, a theory developed by WISC Director Dr. Giulio Tononi and his colleagues over the past 20 years.
1/26/2019: In this interview with the Spanish science blog NAUKAS, WISC researcher Larissa Albantakis discusses consciousness and the integrated information theory.
10/25/2018: In ‘What is Lucid Dreaming?,’ Michael Schroeder of US News interviews WISC postdoc Benjamin Baird about his recent research on lucid dreaming.
8/17/2018: In this article from IFLScience!, WISC postdoc Benjamin Baird discusses new research suggesting that Galantamine can increase the frequency of lucid dreaming.
5/29/2018: A short UW SMPH release on a recent study in Nature Communications by Prof. Tononi, Cirelli and colleagues that clarifies the role of thalamic nuclei in the regulation of conscious states.
5/9/2018: In the Nature article ‘What is consciousness?,’ Dr. Christof Koch discusses WISC Director Giulio Tononi’s pioneering work on understanding and measuring consciousness.
4/2/2018: In ‘How do you know you are reading this?,’ Jason Pontin of WIRED magazine discusses the integrated information theory of consciousness and the practical measures of consciousness developed using the theory.
11/24/2017: In ‘UW study searches for signs of unsettling sleep,’ David Wahlberg of the Wisconsin State Journal talks with WISC researcher Dr. Amandine Valomon about parasomnias such as REM sleep behavior disorder.
7/25/17: In this article from Philosophy Now, Dr. Hedda Hassel Mørch discusses the philosophical implications of The Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness, a theory of consciousness developed over the past 20 years by WISC Director Dr. Giulio Tononi and his colleagues.
5/4/2017: In the Nautilus article ‘A Theory of Consciousness Can Help build a Theory of Everything,’ George Musser discusses work on consciousness, integrated information theory and causation recently published by WISC researchers Dr. Giulio Tononi, Dr. Erik Hoel, Dr. Larissa Albantakis, and Dr. William Marshall.
2/2/2017: In the article ‘The purpose of sleep? To forget, scientists say,’ the New York Times reports on two recent articles that provide remarkable evidence for the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis, a theory of sleep function developed by WISC researchers Drs. Chiara Cirelli and Giulio Tononi.
2/1/2017: In ‘Sleep, Precious Sleep,’ Emily Leas of BRAVA Magazine discusses sleep-related research and health concerns with WISC Assistant Director Stephanie Jones.