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Category: neuroscience

Was William James Right About Consciousness?

Dr. Nicolas Rouleau is a neuroscientist, bioengineer, and Assistant Professor of Health Sciences at Wilfrid Laurier University. He wrote the award-winning essay, ‘An Immortal Stream of Consciousness: The scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death,’ in which he argues that the transmissive theory of consciousness may actually be more consistent with emerging scientific insights than the dominant assumption that the brain generates consciousness.

In this conversation with Hans Busstra, Rouleau shares the main arguments from his essay, which touch upon his collaboration with Dr. Michael Persinger, the inventor of the ‘God Helmet,’ and his work with Michael Levin on ‘mind blindness’—the idea that science may be searching for mind in too restricted a place by focusing almost exclusively on neurons.

More information on Dr. Nic Rouleau:
https://www.wlu.ca/academics/facultie… website: https://www.rouleaulab.com/ Further reading and scientific references discussed in this video: Rouleau’s BICS Essay: ‘An Immortal Stream of Consciousness: The scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death.’ https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/inde… Rouleau, N., Levin, M., et al. (2025) (Preprint; forthcoming in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society). Brains and Where Else? Mapping Theories of Consciousness to Unconventional Embodiments. https://tinyurl.com/439rrn8z Rouleau, N., & Levin, M. (2023). The Multiple Realizability of Sentience in Living Systems and Beyond. eNeuro, 10(11). https://tinyurl.com/2s4bdtmm Rouleau, N. & Cimino, N. (2022). A Transmissive Theory of Brain Function: Implications for Health, Disease, and Consciousness. NeuroSci, 3. https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4087/3/3/32 McCraty, R., et al. (2018). Long-term study of heart rate variability responses to changes in the solar and geomagnetic environment. https://tinyurl.com/254x3b9t Rouleau, N., & Persinger, M. A. (2016). Differential responsiveness of the right parahippocampal region to electrical stimulation in fixed human brains: Implications for historical surgical stimulation studies. Epilepsy & Behavior, 60181–186. https://tinyurl.com/uc5jbr Rajaram, M., & Mitra, S. (1981). Correlation between convulsive seizure and geomagnetic activity. Neuroscience Letters, 24, 187–191. https://tinyurl.com/3snrs4cs Chapters 0:00 Introduction 4:00 What Nic Rouleau would say to William James about his theory of transmissive consciousness 7:14 What do we know empirically about how electromagnetic fields influence our brains? 10:27 How scientifically rigorous are the empirical data on the influence of the Earth’s magnetic field on brains? 11:35 On Nic’s mentor, Dr. Michael Persinger, the inventor of the God Helmet 14:42 Research on post-mortem brain tissue 18:09 What mental states are influenced by magnetic fields? 18:58 Electromagnetic effects in dead vs. living brains 19:45 On Michael Levin and the paradigm shift due to bioelectricity 21:24 Influencing the thoughts of deceased people 25:33 Are biological forms stored in the Earth’s magnetic field? 30:21 Shielding brains from electromagnetic fields 33:12 Mind blindness: we only see 1% of the minds out there 38:55 What is the best way out of mind blindness? 41:06 Plant-based computation 42:00 The Self-Organizing Units Lab (SOUL) and what Nic is working on 43:23 Minds in a Petri dish 46:13 What counts as embodiment? 48:44 Phenomenal consciousness on different levels 53:06 What theories of consciousness can get us out of the behaviorist trap? 57:25 Nic’s award-winning essay on consciousness beyond death 1:00:55 Intermediary states of consciousness, the Bardo Thodol 1:04:46 Consciousness when the radio, the brain, is completely broken 1:06:35 Why exactly is electromagnetism a better explanation of consciousness beyond death than NDEs or OBEs? 1:11:58 How does the God Helmet work? 1:17:31 Which electromagnetic fields influence our consciousness and which ones don’t? 1:23:59 Can all of consciousness be stored in the Earth’s magnetic field? 1:27:08 Children with past-life memories: could electromagnetism play a role there? 1:29:51 How do quantum theories of consciousness relate to the work of Nic? 1:33:42 Do our brains connect electromagnetically with each other? 1:35:28 Nic on the hard problem of consciousness 1:38:00 Aren’t you just a materialist 2.0? 1:40:25 On the meaning of Nic’s work Copyright © 2026 Essentia Foundation. All rights on interview content reserved.
Personal website: https://www.rouleaulab.com/

Further reading and scientific references discussed in this video:

Rouleau’s BICS Essay: ‘An Immortal Stream of Consciousness: The scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness after permanent bodily death.’ https://www.bigelowinstitute.org/inde…

Rouleau, N., Levin, M., et al. (2025) (Preprint; forthcoming in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society). Brains and Where Else? Mapping Theories of Consciousness to Unconventional Embodiments. https://tinyurl.com/439rrn8z.

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Next-gen interferometric diffusing wave spectroscopy achieves 20x signal boost in cerebral blood flow monitoring

Cerebral blood flow is essential for normal brain function and often perturbed in neurological disease. If one shines a source of coherent light on perfused tissue, the detected speckles, or “grains” of light fluctuate, or “dance,” at a rate proportional to blood flow in the volume sampled by the light. In brain tissue, this concept can be harnessed to measure the cerebral blood flow index (CBFi).

However, to date, implementations of this principle for noninvasive adult human brain monitoring—collectively known as diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS)—have achieved limited brain sensitivity. This is because the brain is 1–2 centimeters deep beneath the scalp and skull, meaning that the light must sample the superficial tissue before reaching the brain.

While the collection points can be moved further from the source to address this issue by improving sampling of the brain, this strategy requires many photon-counting channels to detect highly attenuated light far from the source. DCS becomes prohibitively expensive as the number of channels increases.

Introduction: Charles Liu

Does the universe need observers to exist? Neil deGrasse Tyson and co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly explore questions about entropy, spontaneous symmetry breaking, spectroscopy and more with astrophysicist Charles Liu.

Does the universe require observers for information to exist? From Niels Bohr and the Copenhagen interpretation to modern neuroscience and philosophy, the crew explores whether measurement creates reality or reveals it. How does the double-slit experiment fit into this? Are wave and particle behaviors determined by how we measure them?

The conversation turns to information itself. What do physicists mean by “information”? How is entropy connected to hidden information in a system? We discuss entropy through everyday examples like coin flips, burning wood, and boiling water. How does this relate to quantum computing? We explore how astronomers separate cosmic redshift from stellar motion using spectroscopy, how interstellar dust and extinction curves complicate observations, and why mapping that dust is both a challenge and a source of discovery.

We discuss why the Big Bang didn’t form a black hole, how spontaneous symmetry breaking may have split the fundamental forces, and whether science can meaningfully investigate the universe’s earliest moments. Wrapping up, the team looks ahead to multi-messenger astronomy, next-generation telescope technology, exotic ideas about the speed of light, and how information continues to reshape what we know about the cosmos.

Thanks to our Patrons Avery Ellis, Markus Riegler, Linda Tullberg, Gami Lannin, Arief Aziz, Ron Lawhon, Corie Prater, Patrick McNaught, FracturedEquality, Spengler, Peter Harbeson, Oddron86, Hudson Lowe, Drew Romaniak, V2022, Kyle Ferchen, Branko Denčić, Patrick Borgquist, DJ Sipe, Andy Blair, Alan Keizer, SR, Nihat Cubukcu, Greg Lance, Diwas Pandit, Anik Kasumi, Alexander Albert, Kodai, Dyonne Peters Lewoc AKA DPTaterTot, Adrian, Ben Goff, Jose Barreiro, Saurabh Chaudhari, Wimberley Children’s House, Jean Arthur Deda, Jerrel Thomas, Serkan Ergenc, Douglas Kennedy, Lee Browner, Manuel Palmer, Dans Jansons, Russell Harvey, BladiX, Lars-Ove Torstensson, Norman Weizer, Arian Farkhoy, S. Madge, Pavel Seraphimov, Amanda Wolfe, Heisenberg, Mattchew Phillips, Caleb Berumen, Sretooh, Gary Tabbert, Oscar Abreu Lamas, Kevin Attebury, Volker Haberlandt, SeaGolly, B. Shoemaker, Ruben Ferrer, Steven Adams, Daniel Hintz, Nathaniel Richardson, Nick Griffiths, Adam Schmidt, Scott Plummer, Northernlight, JoMama, Beth, Frank Cottone, Yinj, Betty Anderson, Paul Smith, John Little, Emad Uddin, Brian O’Brien, Jayden Moffatt, Kevin Mace, Zara DeBresoc, Rain Bresee, Mara (Farmstrong), Rose, Stiven, Demethius Jackson, Alejandro Rodriguez, J Davis, Chris Buhler, Nathan Davieau, Sourav Prakash Patra, Wayne Rasmussen, John from Bavaria, Stephanie Phillips, Yohojones, Josh Farrell, John, Oo-De-Lally, Millie Richter, Montague Films, Lawrey Goodrick, and John Giovannettone for supporting us this week.

Timestamps:

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RNA barcodes fast-track brain connection mapping

“When engineering a computer, you need to know the circuitry of the central processing unit. If you don’t know how everything is wired together, you can’t understand its function, optimize it or fix it when something breaks. We are approaching the brain the same way,” said study leader Boxuan Zhao, a professor of cell and developmental biology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

“Our technology enables simultaneous mapping of thousands of neural connections with single-synapse resolution —a capability that doesn’t exist in any current technology. It is directly applicable to understanding circuit dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases and could provide a platform for developing circuit-guided therapeutic interventions,” he said.

Association of Brain Network Perturbations With Response to Vagus Nerve Stimulation in Children With Drug-Resistant Focal Epilepsy

This study investigated whether preimplantation functional network perturbations in relation to interictal epileptiform discharges are associated with vagus nerve stimulation response in children with focal drug-resistant epilepsy.

Background and Objectives.

Boy, 7, dies of brain condition caused by world’s most contagious disease — years after he had it as a baby

Measles is a highly contagious viral infection that causes high fever, cough, red/watery eyes, and a characteristic blotchy rash, spreading through airborne droplets. It primarily affects children but can strike anyone, with severe cases leading to pneumonia, brain swelling, or death. Prevention is primarily through the MMR vaccine, which is 97% effective.

//He had contracted measles as a baby of just 7 months old — but fast-forward years later to when he was 6 and experiencing cognitive deterioration and seizures.

Doctors eventually diagnosed him with subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a neurological disease that can develop years after a measles infection.

This brain disorder usually starts with subtle personality changes, like memory loss, irritability or mood swings. Over time, it can progress to involuntary muscle spasms, loss of coordination, severe brain damage, coma — and almost always death.\
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What is subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE): Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) is a rare, fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disorder of the central nervous system caused by a persistent, mutated measles virus infection. Typically affecting children or adolescents years after an initial infection, it causes cognitive decline, myoclonic jerks, and seizures, leading to death within 1–3 years. There is no cure, though prevention via measles vaccination is highly effective.

Even those who make a full recovery from the initial infection face a lurking threat: a deadly disease that remains latent until striking — and killing — years later.

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C9orf72 hexanucleotide repeat RNA drives transcriptional dysregulation through genome-wide DNA: RNA hybrid G-quadruplexes

Transcriptional dysregulation hexanucleotide repeats in ALS

Repeat hexanucleotide RNAs in C9orf72 are implicated in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia disease pathogenesis but the mechanisms of action remain incompletely understood.

The researchers demonstrate that expanded C9orf72 G4C2 repeat RNAs bind gene promoters across the genome and form DNA: RNA hybrid G-quadruplexes (HQs) structures with DNA.

These structures obstruct RNA polymerase II and transcription factors, repress gene expression, and heighten neuronal vulnerability, providing mechanistic insights into neurodegeneration in ALS and FTD. sciencenewshighlights ScienceMission https://sciencemission.com/hexanucleotide-repeat

Liu et al. demonstrate that expanded C9orf72 G4C2 repeat RNAs bind gene promoters across the genome and form HQ structures with DNA. These structures obstruct key transcription machinery, repress gene expression, and heighten neuronal vulnerability, providing mechanistic insights into neurodegeneration in ALS and FTD.

PCIF1-mediated m6Am modification in ACC neurons participates in inflammatory pain and anxiety

Liu et al. demonstrate that the m6Am methyltransferase PCIF1 in ACC neurons is crucial for both the initiation and maintenance of inflammatory pain and comorbid anxiety. They further reveal that PCIF1 modulates these behaviors by targeting Gap43 m6Am modification, thereby promoting GAP43 expression.

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