Predictive coding, AI, and beyond: What computational neuroscience can tell us about changing our minds

Professor Friston received the first Young Investigators Award in Human Brain Mapping (1996) and was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1999). In 2000 he was President of the international Organization of Human Brain Mapping. In 2003 he was awarded the Minerva Golden Brain Award and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2006. In 2008 he received a Medal, Collège de France. He became of Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology in 2012, received the Weldon Memorial prize and Medal in 2013 for contributions to mathematical biology and was elected as a member of EMBO (excellence in the life sciences) in 2014 and the Academia Europaea in (2015). He was the 2016 recipient of the Charles Branch Award for unparalleled breakthroughs in Brain Research and the Glass Brain Award – a lifetime achievement award in the field of human brain mapping. He holds Honorary Doctorates from the universities of York, Zurich, Liège and Radboud University. He received the Donald O Hebb Award (International. Neural Network Society) in 2022.

Dr Graham Jamieson is Senior Lecturer in Cognitive Affective and Social Neuroscience in The School of Psychology at the University of New England (Armidale). His research career spans over 40 years in the area of hypnosis and experience (absorption, dissociation and response to suggestion). His principal focus is electrophysiology, EEG and ECG, source localisation and functional connectivity to study brain dynamics and neural network interactions related to hypnotic suggestibility and phenomenological, psychophysiological and cognitive-behavioural responses to different types of hypnotic suggestion. His core theoretical frameworks include oscillatory dynamics, Predictive Processing and evolutionary biology.

Dr Quinton Deeley is a Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Neuropsychiatrist, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, Kings College London.  He chairs the Maudsley Philosophy Group, and co-chairs the Social and Cultural Neuroscience Group at the IOPPN. He has researched the relations between culture, cognition and brain function since studying Theology and Religious Studies at Cambridge University, medicine at Guys and St Thomas', and psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital.   His work brings cognitive neuroscience research into dialogue with humanities to improve understanding of cultural variation in mental health and religious cognition, experience, and behaviour. Current research topics include using suggestions to alter self-experience, voice hearing in spiritualist mediums, and investigating how religious practices modulate cognition using a Virtual Reality reconstruction of an ancient Greek religious ritual.