Ten years on from its founding, the Sackler Centre looks back on a successful first decade and forward to even greater discoveries in the future.
On 21 April 2010, the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science held its opening event at the Chowen Lecture Theatre at BSMS. This event inaugurated a decade of leading research, clinical application, teaching, and public engagement – and to the recognition of Sussex as the go-to place for multidisciplinary consciousness research anywhere in the world.
Ten years on, the Centre remains firmly at the international forefront of consciousness science and its clinical application. Their researchers have published more than 400 research papers across a variety of fields and in high-profile journals. The Centre has pioneered a dedicated doctoral training programme supporting 10 PhD students since 2010, seven of which have now graduated. Recognising the world-leading contributions of researchers in the Centre, co-directors Anil Seth and Hugo Critchley were both listed in 2019 Web of Science Highly Cited Researchers List for having made sustained contributions in the top 1% of their field over the past decade.
Research in the Sackler Centre is distinguished by its interdisciplinary nature. Spanning the Schools of Engineering and Informatics, Psychology, Philosophy, and Medicine (BSMS), the Centre brings together outstanding neuroscientists, engineers, philosophers, and clinicians. Together they develop theory, advance research methods, and apply technological innovations to understand the mechanisms that underpin healthy and disordered states of consciousness.
Over the last 10 years, Centre researchers have made many high-impact discoveries, ranging from new mathematical measures of conscious ‘level’ to demonstrations that subjective experiences can be altered through extensive cognitive training. A core theme throughout is that conscious perception is constructed for each of us by our brain’s predictions about what’s out there in the world – and in the body.
Clinical research in the Centre is closely integrated with these advances in the basic science of consciousness. Over the last decade, this research has evolved from computational, experimental and neuroimaging studies of healthy individuals and patients with clinical disorders to clinical trials of novel interventions. By focusing on the core mechanisms of altered perception, cognition and emotion, clinically-oriented consciousness science delves beneath the symptoms to address the causes of psychological variation and psychiatric disorders across many conditions including depression, autism, anxiety, dissocation, Tourette syndrome, and schizophrenia. At the same time, this deeper understanding of psychiatric conditions sheds fresh light on biological mechanisms of conscious experience in general.
Accompanying these high-profile research contributions, the Sackler Centre has played a leading role in the wider community of consciousness researchers, as well as in public engagement and outreach. There have been many highlights over the last decade, including public events such as New Scientist Live and the British Science Festival.
Looking ahead, although much progress has been made, there is still much to be done. Co-director Anil Seth says: “Deciphering the brain basis of consciousness remains a key challenge for 21st Century science, and its application in psychiatry and neurology is becoming ever more important. At the Centre, we are proud of what we have accomplished already, and we are as excited as ever to continue the journey. Our future success depends on attracting and retaining the best minds – and our reputation at the forefront of consciousness science leaves us ideally placed to do just this.”
Hugo Critchley, Co-director and Chair of Psychiatry at BSMS, adds: "Consciousness science, and the tools it brings, is profoundly reshaping how we approach our functional neuroscientific understanding of the mind, the self, mental health and psychiatric disorders. This new detailed, often mathematically informed understanding of the mind and psychological dysfunction is informing fresh approaches to treatment. A next stage for the field is to build further bridges between consciousness neuroscience and advances in molecular neuroscience. A comprehensive account of thoughts, feelings and behaviours would be impoverished without a robust multilevel model of conscious selfhood and subjective experience."
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