Innovations in Health Learning Lab: Unlocking the Mysteries of Consciousness
Innovations in Health Learning Lab: January 8, 2025
Unlocking the Mysteries of Consciousness Featuring Christof Koch, PhD
Join us for an enlightening talk by neuroscientist and pioneer of consciousness research, Christof Koch, PhD. During this discussion, he will explore transformative experiences such as mystical encounters, near-death experiences, and psychedelic journeys. These rare events can lead to profound and permanent changes in an individual’s attitudes, beliefs, and habits, offering therapeutic benefits for various clinical conditions, including depression. Understanding these experiences is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of the mind and brain. This will be a central focus of the research on psychedelic medicines as a novel treatment for depression being studied at the Vail Health Behavioral Health Innovation Center.
The Learning Lab series is generously sponsored by Pat and Tony McMunn.
Wednesday, January 8, 2025
5:30 – 7:30 p.m.
Colorado Mountain College, Lecture Hall
150 Miller Ranch Road, Edwards, CO
RSVPs are also accepted at Events@VailHealth.org or (970) 569-7766. Kindly RSVP by January 1, 2025.
About Our Speaker
Dr. Christof Koch
Dr. Christof Koch is a renowned neuroscientist best known for his pioneering studies and writings on the basis of consciousness, a journey he began with the molecular biologist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA structure. Dr. Koch is an investigator at the Allen Institute and chief scientist at the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. He received his baccalaureate from the Lycée Descartes in Rabat, Morocco, his B.S. and M.S. in physics from the University of Tübingen in Germany, and his Ph.D. from the Max-Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in 1982. After spending four years as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT, he joined the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1987, where he served as a professor until 2013. In 2011, Christof joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science as Chief Scientific Officer and became President in 2015.
Christof’s research focuses on neurons, their diverse shapes, electrical behaviors, and computational functions within the mammalian brain, particularly in the neocortex. In collaboration with Francis Crick, he initiated the modern search for the neuronal correlates of consciousness, a systematic experimental program to identify the minimal bio-physical mechanisms jointly sufficient for any one specific conscious percept. Christof’s writings integrate neuroscience with philosophy and artificial intelligence. His most recent book, “Then I Am Myself the World,” explores these themes in depth.
