Juliane Britz
juliane.britz@unifr.ch
+41 26 300 7688
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8042-4302
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Lecturer,
Department of Psychology
RM 02 bu. S-1.145
Rue P.A. de Faucigny 2
1700 Fribourg
Research and publications
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my publications
24 publications
Embodied Semantics: Early Simultaneous Motor Grounding in First and Second Languages
Brain Sciences (2024) | Journal articleInteroceptive signals shape the earliest markers and neural pathway to awareness at the visual threshold
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024) | Journal article -
Research projects
BBC - Brain, Body and Consciousness
Status: OngoingStart 01.12.2019 End 30.09.2025 Funding SNSF Open project sheet Background and rationale: The brain plays undoubtedly a major role for consciousness. However, the brain is intricately connected with the rest of the body, and the bodily rhythms of heartbeat and respiration as well as the response of the brain to the heartbeat can likewise predict conscious awareness. An unresolved question is to which degree activity from the brain and the body contributes to conscious awareness and whether brain and body exert a joint or an independent influence on conscious awareness. In order to address this issue, activity has to be recorded simultaneously from the brain and body, and their interactions have to be assessed both in task situations manipulating conscious awareness and at rest. Objectives and aims: The present project investigates the mechanisms with which activity from the brain (measured by electroencephalography (EEG)) and the body (measured by electrocardiogram (ECG) and respiration) influence conscious awareness. The main questions are: 1. do brain and body exert an independent or joint influence on conscious awareness? 2. do they exert this influence only on a trial-to-trial (intra-individual) basis or can they predict inter-individual differences in conscious awareness? 3. are such interactions between brain and body also observed at rest when subjects do not perform a task? The aim of this proposal is to understand whether the brain signatures of conscious awareness solely reflect brain activity or whether their variance can be partly explained by other bodily rhythms. Research Plan: To address the interplay between brain and body in conscious awareness I propose three experiments in which we simultaneously record EEG, ECG and respiration in healthy participants. The experiments are organized in in four workpackages (WPs). WP1 &2 assess intra- individual differences for trial-to-trial fluctuations in conscious awareness for stimuli presented at the sensory threshold. WP1 uses simple visual stimuli and WP2 used behaviorally more relevant emotional stimuli. WP3 assesses inter-individual differences for perceptual awareness of stimuli presented above the sensory threshold. WP4 investigates the interaction between EEG activity, ECG activity and respiration recorded in the same subjects at rest and models their interplay. Relevance: We can no longer ignore the importance of bodily activity for conscious awareness and have to provide an integrated view on how the brain and body interact to achieve conscious awareness. The current proposal puts the role of brain activity on awareness in a bigger perspective by relating it to the bodily rhythms of breathing and heartbeat. It will provide an answer to the question whether electrophysiological measures of brain activity are purely generated by the brain or whether part of their variance can be explained by electrophysiological measures of other bodily rhythms, namely cardiac and respiratory activity. Results will have important implications for future studies on the role of brain activity for consciousness by revealing whether bodily rhythms can partly drive and explain brain activity. This implies that bodily rhythms might need to be recorded simultaneously with brain activity and need to be properly accounted for in the analysis of brain activity.