Consciousness & Sentience Research
At MindScope Institute
About Our Consciousness & Sentience Research
Our research explores the foundations of consciousness and moral agency through a tripartite framework that includes embodied (body), embedded (mind), and noetic (spirit) dimensions of the human person. We investigate how these principles differentiate human consciousness from machine (AI) intelligence, develop metrics for conscious states, and propose ethical guardrails for AI systems claiming sentient capacities. By bridging clinical science with ethical governance, we aim to foster human flourishing and ensure that emerging technologies serve the dignity, autonomy, and well-being of all persons.
Key Research Areas:
Development of consciousness:
Just as body and mind mature across the lifespan, our research explores how conscious awareness (nous) emerges and evolves from infancy through adulthood. We investigate the interplay of neurophysiological complexity, phenomenological experience, and contextual embeddedness, aiming to map developmental trajectories of consciousness and their implications for mental health, moral agency, and human flourishing.
Neurophenomenological Research and AI Sentience:
Our goal is to develop empirically rigorous methods that integrate first-person experiential data with high-resolution neurophysiological measurements, creating a systematic bridge between subjective awareness and objective science. By combining phenomenology, complexity analysis, and computational modeling, we aim to produce testable models that map conscious states onto brain dynamics, advancing both theoretical understanding and clinical applications in psychiatry. This research will establish scientifically validated criteria for distinguishing genuine awareness from algorithmic simulation, safeguard the uniqueness and dignity of human consciousness, and inform ethical frameworks for AI sentience.
Consciousness research and Psychiatric Care for the Whole Person
We seek to ground human dignity in the uniqueness of human consciousness within a framework that is both scientifically rigorous and empirically testable, contrasting this with the absence of genuine sentience in AI systems. This distinction is not merely theoretical; it shapes how we approach psychiatric care. Our frameworks will help clinicians understand mental health not just as brain dysfunction but as disruptions in the noetic or spiritual dimension of lived meaning, relational context, and agency. This approach fosters care that honors human dignity, safeguards autonomy, and resists the mechanistic assumptions that increasingly influence healthcare.
References
Bauer, A., Bosl, W., Aalami, O., & Schmiedmayer, P. (2025). Toward Scalable Access to Neurodevelopmental Screening: Insights, Implementation, and Challenges (No. arXiv:2503.13472). arXiv. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2503.13472
Bosl, W. J. (2018). The Emerging Role of Neurodiagnostic Informatics in Integrated Neurological and Mental Health Care. Neurodiagnostic Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/21646821.2018.1508983
Bosl, W. J., Bosquet Enlow, M., Lock, E. F., & Nelson, C. A. (2023). A biomarker discovery framework for childhood anxiety. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 14, 1158569. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1158569
Bosl, W. J., Enlow, M. B., & Nelson, C. A. (2025). A dynamical systems framework for precision psychiatry. Npj Digital Medicine, 8(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-025-01984-6
Bosl, W. J., Leviton, A., & Loddenkemper, T. (2021). Prediction of Seizure Recurrence. A Note of Caution. Frontiers in Neurology, 12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2021.675728
Bosl, W. J., Loddenkemper, T., & Nelson, C. A. (2017). Nonlinear EEG biomarker profiles for autism and absence epilepsy. Neuropsychiatric Electrophysiology, 3(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40810-017-0023-x
Bosl, W. J., Tager-Flusberg, H., & Nelson, C. A. (2018). EEG Analytics for Early Detection of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A data-driven approach. Scientific Reports, 8(1), 6828. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-24318-x
Sathyanarayana, A., Atrache, R. E., Jackson, M., Cantley, S., Reece, L., Ufongene, C., Loddenkemper, T., Mandl, K., & Bosl, W. (2020). Measuring Real-Time Medication Effects From Electroencephalography (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 3734276). Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3734276
Sathyanarayana, A., El Atrache, R., Jackson, M., Alter, A. S., Mandl, K. D., Loddenkemper, T., & Bosl, W. J. (2021). Measuring the effects of sleep on epileptogenicity with multifrequency entropy. Clinical Neurophysiology: Official Journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, 132(9), 2012–2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2021.06.001