Adrian M. Owen, OBE, FRS
@comadork.bsky.social
British/Canadian Neuroscientist. Two times cancer survivor. Bucket list ticker. Proud atheist. Author of Sunday Times Best-seller ‘Into The Gray Zone'.
My new book 'Think Before You Think' is out today. Available at all good book shops or from any of these online retailers: wwnorton.com/books/978132...
Think Before You Think
A pioneering researcher unveils the neuroscience of executive function: how it works and what we can (and can’t) do to improve it., Think Before You Think, Understanding and Mastering Executive ...
wwnorton.com
Executive Function is in short supply (and technology is not to blame). My opinion piece in today's Maclean's. macleans.ca/society/tech...
Executive Function Is in Short Supply - Macleans.ca
But technology isn’t to blame
macleans.ca
Delighted to share the U.K. cover of my new book, Think Before You Think: Understanding Your Brain’s Mission Control. If you’ve ever arrived in a room and forgotten why you went there, this book is for you. Waterstones is offering 25% off with code SUMMER26 until 24 July. Go fast!
How should we decide who, or what, is conscious? www.npr.org/2026/07/13/n...
How should we decide who, or what, is conscious? : Short Wave
In the age of AI, what differentiates humans from robots? What makes humans … human? To find answers, many people are studying consciousness: our capacity for experience. But doctors and researchers s...
npr.org
Applications are now open for our 2026 CIFAR Brain, Mind, and Consciousness Winter School, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya 🇰🇪. Attendance is competitive & fully funded thx to generous support from @templetonworld.bsky.social. Apply by June 10: cifar.ca/next-generat...
CIFAR Neuroscience of Consciousness Winter School - CIFAR
Follow Us FaceBook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn Instagram The CIFAR Neuroscience of Consciousness Winter School is a unique, three-day event where tomorrow’s neuroscience leaders work closely […]
cifar.ca
Pants or trousers? Both North American and U.K. editions of my new book can now can be preordered below: wwnorton.com/books/978132... linktr.ee/ThinkBeforeY...
There's a nice article about our research in today's New York Times by 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner Katie Engelhart. It beautifully summarises the last 20 years and provides a glimpse into what's coming next. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/m...
Vegetative Patients May Be More Aware Than We Knew
nytimes.com
Nice article about our @CIHR_IRSC funded research in the New York Times today @westernu.ca www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/m...
Vegetative Patients May Be More Aware Than We Knew
nytimes.com
Coming soon! I'm quite excited about this so I am going to plug it shamelessly. You can preorder it here: wwnorton.com/books/978132... or at Amazon if you prefer: www.amazon.com/dp/1324075163
Think Before You Think
A pioneering researcher unveils the neuroscience of executive function: How it works and what we can (and can’t) do to improve it., Think Before You Think, Understanding and Mastering Executive ...
wwnorton.com
I know it's a bit early, but this stocking filler will be coming to a good bookstore near you on August 4th, 2026 😀
Many thanks for all the kind words about my post yesterday. The issue has now been resolved and the lab is back up and running. I will not be providing any more details.
One in four comatose (behaviourally non-responsive) patients in the ICU following a serious brain injury show us they are aware using fNIRS - published today. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Why treadmills soothe our minds and joysticks sharpen our wits: fab to see the peer-reviewed results of our online mass experiment for the Manchester Science Festival with @comadork.bsky.social and his team from @westernu.ca in @plosone.org! blog.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/why-treadmil...
Why treadmills soothe our minds and joysticks sharpen our wits | Science and Industry Museum
Detailed findings of a pioneering 'brain and body' study developed for the Manchester Science Festival have just been published, reports Science Director, and study co-author, Roger Highfield.
blog.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk
It will be 20 years next year, yet our 2006 article continues to be the paper that keeps on giving. What a wild ride it’s been! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
The quest to detect consciousness — in all its possible forms
Insights from human brains might inform how scientists search for awareness in other animals and AI.
nature.com
Very proud of this one. If you want a complete primer on the history of functional neuroimaging in disorders of consciousness, then this is for you. With @karnig-kazazian.bsky.social and Martin Monti. owenlab.org/uploads/pdfF...
owenlab.org
Brilliant straight talking from the brilliant @adamrutherford.bsky.social A must read for everyone. www.bbc.com/future/artic...
'Biological reality': What genetics has taught us about race
As US President Donald Trump takes aim at the Smithsonian Institution for "anti-American ideology", Adam Rutherford examines what the science of genetics has taught us about race.
bbc.com
My new book, provisionally titled “Thinking On Your Feet” will be published soon by #norton. But maybe I should retitling it “The Rise and Fall of the American Frontal Lobe”? Everyone seems to have stopped thinking for themselves. Did some cosmic event turn off an entire nation’s frontal lobes?
It took them a while to catch on, but they’re finally waking up. If you wait to be told what to do, it will be too late to do anything about it. apple.news/AvPEO57t0TSS...
Canadian university teachers warned against travelling to the United States — The Canadian Press
The association that represents academic staff at Canadian universities is wa
apple.news
Wow, we are now being officially advised against travel to the USA by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. I never thought I'd see the day. ☹️ #AcademicChatter
One boss passes the baton to another. Incredible performances all round. I’ve seem them both many times and this shows they are more than the sum of their parts www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cma_...
The Killers & Bruce Springsteen: Encore At The Garden
YouTube video by TheKillersMusic
youtube.com
Then he’ll sort Alzheimer’s disease by Christmas, cancer early in the new year, and eradicate heart disease by the summer. It’s shocking that thousands of scientists have spent decades failing to solve problems that one man with no relevant qualifications is going to fix in less than a year.
In my ongoing quest to publish as many academic papers with Arnold Schwazenegger movies as part of the title, I give you…..Total Recall….out today and free to read www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Total recall: Detecting autobiographical memory retrieval in the absence of behaviour
Functional neuroimaging has fundamentally changed our understanding of disorders of consciousness (DoC). While many DoC patients exhibit minimal to no…
sciencedirect.com
Post you from a different era. One side done. 1980.
*BREAKING* World’s largest baby throws second tantrum in as many days…
New version of "the letter" in Nature Neuroscience. Like many others in the field, I signed because I believe that IIT threatens to deligitimize the scientific study of consciousness: www.nature.com/articles/s41....
What makes a theory of consciousness unscientific? - Nature Neuroscience
Theories of consciousness have a long and controversial history. One well-known proposal — integrated information theory — has recently been labeled as ‘pseudoscience’, which has caused a heated open ...
nature.com
Oh, it’s Friday. They’re back on. No, they’re off. Or is on the new off? 250%? Did he make that number up? Does he think that’s the same as 25%? Who knows? He certainly doesn’t. It’s a beautiful number. What number? Any number! What did I just say? #internationallaughingstock
Grass roots revolution starting at my local liquor store….
This is the first page of this morning’s edition of the Globe and Mail (arguably the English Canadian paper of record) I don’t remember seeing anything like this before
