The main focus for the Visiting Professorship at Lund University will be on developing conceptual and empirical tools for understanding whether consciousness can be multiply realized across different physical substrates. By integrating philosophical analysis with empirical work on neurorehabilitation, Morten Overgaard aims to derive general principles relevant to assessing the possibility of consciousness in artificial systems.

Read more at:
https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/morten-storm-overgaard

Contact

Morten Storm Overgaard
morten.storm.overgaard@cfin.au.dk
+45 20 78 31 54

Mattias research combines cognitive neuroscience, signal processing, and neuroimaging methods development to investigate how brain dynamics support perception, action, and human interaction. Across his research trajectory at MIB, he has developed and applied advanced analytical frameworks for EEG and MEG, with a particular focus on multivariate source separation and frequency-resolved functional connectivity. More recently, he developed the FREQ-NESS framework, a methodological approach for understanding the functional organization of the brain in a system of large-scale brain networks operating at specific frequencies.

Through this Nordic Mensa-funded project, Mattia extends this line of work to examine how frequency-resolved brain network organization relates to individual differences in intelligence.

Based on their influential research, the authors carefully take the reader by the hand through a distillation of ideas formed over many years of patrolling the borders of our ignorance, creating a truly interdisciplinary science using tools from biology, philosophy, psychology, mathematics and physics

You can read more about the book here where a free download is also available:

Whole-brain modelling | Free Download of Book

Read more about the new article in Science Magazine:
https://scienmag.com/consciousness-research-beyond-mere-theory-testing/

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Original article
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Title: There can be more to consciousness research than theory testing
Authors: Morten Overgaard, Peter Fazekas, Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup, Kristian Sandberg, Wanja Wiese 

The grant allows him to acquire a new dual-scanner audio system enabling a unique fMRI hyperscanning setup for studying live human interaction between two neighbouring Siemens 3T scanners.

The platform supports real-time dialogue, vocal exchange, coordination, and co-creation between two interacting brains across speech, nonverbal vocalisations, and music.

More about the project from the Carlsberg website:
How does the emotional tone of our voice shape a partners feelings, speech, and brain during a live conversation? We link two MRI scanners with synchronized, low-latency audio, allowing two people to converse naturally between the scanners. By altering one partners emotional tone as they speak, we can causally test how it changes the other partners interaction, emotions, and brain activity.

The infrastructure is designed as an open, collaborative resource. Feel free to get in touch with Boris Kleber if youre interested in using it or exploring joint projects.

MRI is a minimally invasive tool for deep-tissue imaging in living organisms, but its typical spatial resolution (0.11 mm) is insufficient to resolve important cellular and sub-cellular changes such as those underlying cancer, inflammation, and neurodegeneration. QuantuMRI add resses this critical limitation by integrating nanoscale quantum sensing with macroscopic MRI, enabling the readout of metabolic, morphological, and functional tissue properties at unprecedented resolution.

To achieve this, we propose a novel imaging platform where quantum information from nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in functionalized nanodiamonds (NDs) which can sense important cellular parameters including pH, temperature, ion concentration, and membrane permeability is amplified, and transferred to surrounding water protons via magnetization saturation-transfer mechanisms. This bridging between the NVs nano/microscopic sensing and MRIs voxel-scale signals will be realized at low magnetic fields and enhanced through AI-based denoising and miniaturized detection technologies, which are currently transforming low-field MRI. 

The project builds upon multiple lines of preliminary research from our own and from other groups, evidencing that QuantuMRIs key building blocksNV-based sensing, electron hyperpolarization, nuclear resonance shifts, functionalized targeting, magnetization transfer, and advanced image readoutcan be robustly implemented. The high-risk/high-gain innovation lies in their integration into a scalable platform for quantum-enhanced MRI. 

By establishing this new class of imaging, QuantuMRI will provide deep, specific insights into tissue microstructure and metabolism in living systems, fundamentally advance our understanding of disease, enable earlier and more precise diagnostics across biomedical disciplines, and define a new paradigm for deep tissue quantum sensing.

Professor Sune Jespersen from CFIN, Aarhus University will lead the project in collaboration with researchers Amit Finkler and Lucio Frydman from Israel, and Gonzalo Agustín Álvarez from Argentina.
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About the Novo Nordisk Foundation grant

Programme: Interdisciplinary Synergy Programme 2025
Project title: Quantum-sensed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (QuantuMRI): Imaging beyond the voxel
Project period: 4 years
Grant: DKK 19,450,066

Team:
PI: Professor Sune Jespersen, CFIN, Aarhus University

Co-PIs:

• Amit Finkler - Weizmann Institute of Science - Chemical and Biological Physics, Israel 
  (https://www.weizmann.ac.il/chembiophys/finkler/group)
• Lucio Frydman - Weizmann Institute of Science - Department of Chemical and Biological Physics, Israel  
  (https://www.weizmann.ac.il/chembiophys/Frydman_group/home)
• Gonzalo Agustín Álvarez - Comision Nacional de Energia Atomica - Centro Atomico Bariloche & Instituto Balseiro, CONICET, CNEA, Argentina 
  (https://www.famaf.unc.edu.ar/~galvarez/main.html)

Contact
 

Sune Jespersen
https://www.au.dk/en/sune@cfin.au.dk
Email: sune@cfin.au.dk
Phone: +45 60 89 66 42

Politiken Podcasts are free and available to all and can be found at:
https://politiken.dk/podcast/Teenagehjernen/ 

Contact:

Associate Professor Dan Bang
danbang@cfin.au.dk
Pure profile

Postdoc Oskar Hougaard Jefsen
oskar.jefsen@cfin.au.dk 
Pure profile

Read more in Weekendavisen
Weekendavisen/Ideas Ånden i maskinen 

The background for the interview in Weekendavisen is an article that Morten Overgaard, Asger Kirkeby-Hinrup and Sascha Fink recently published in the scientific journal Neuroscience of Consciousness entitled The multiple generator hypothesis of consciousness.

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Abstract