TALK: Enlightenment Engineering or Consciousness Hacking?

And now for something completely different....!

We are very excited to welcome Francisco Marques Teixeira to Moagem for a fascinating presentation about Neurotechnology and how the dawn of neutech is enabling the human condition to grow and brain enhancement to occur. 

The main focus of the presentation is to show Xico's work in the field of clinical neurofeedback, looking at things like amazing neuropsychiatric symptom reduction results linked to the enhancement of brain capabilities such as concentration, focus and memory.

Xico will also showcase how the neurofeedback paradigm can be applied in technology through the creation of wearable devices that allow us humans to transcend and translate our brain activity into actions such as controlling an audio-visual or virtual reality environment, control robotics (such as cars, drones) and domotics (home automation).

This presentation will be a talk regarding brain frequencies and their relationship to mental states and brain functions. How low frequencies are related to minor conscious mental states and imagetic ways of thinking and higher frequencies are more related to more conscious mental states and semantic\logical way of thinking. How disproportional patters of brain activity and frequencies instability can promote mental illness and less awareness and mindfulness.
The presentation will also contain a brief description of how brain frequencies and electrophysiological patterns behave in altered states of consciousness wether by means of meditation or substance use.

To conclude the talk Francisco will explain how we can alter these brain patterns and frequencies by means of giving feedback to the patients of how their brains are working in real time, using a brain-computer-interface (BCI). The so called Neurofeedback training.

The aim of this talk is: 

1- Show the audience that there is a relation between our thoughts (subjective realm) and a physiological reaction (physic realm);

2 - Explain to the audience that there are alternative therapeutic methods to mental illness rather than the pharmacological ones;

3 - Show the audience some clinical results that show that therapeutic neurofeedback has good symptom reduction results;

4 - Explain to the audience that altered states of consciousness in fact alter brain activity and people awareness; 

5 - Showcase neurotechnology that allows us to transcend and enhance our brain abilities;

6 - Showcase art pieces (installations, performances, softwares & hardwares) that use brain-computer-interfaces to translate and amplify our brain activity and give the crowd another way of perceiving art and the artist.

7 - Showcase apps and wearables that allow us to control our environment (domotics & robotics) with our brain.

Check out Francisco's TED TALK at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-zMPDj1E1k&t=6s

BIO
Francisco's passion is Brain Technology. 

His is passionate about everything that involves technology applied to human health and human self knowledge.
The concept of a quantified self given to us by sensing technology and big data is what defines his path and his goal. This source of knowledge about the human mind and human behavior returned to the client by an immersive and interactive environment fulfills all the needs that are necessary for performance optimization and cognitive enhancement. 

His experience in social, affective, cognitive and computational neuroscience and in techniques such as neuroimaging and electroencephalography applied to clinical psychology and cognitive research gave him the roots needed to work directly with clients, from sportsman to peak executives and clinical patients.

For the last five years, Xico has been working with techie developers, geeky artists, researchers and hackers who share the same vision as his: to link the brain to a digital medium and to the internet of things so we can enter in a transhumanism age and promote brain computer interactions as well as brain to brain communication.

His ultimate research aspiration is to understand how this new media, mainly interactivity and immersion can alter our brain and how our mind is going to adapt to this new realm of existence that is the digital world.

Currently Francsico is the director of the division of Neurofeedback at Neurobios - Neuroscience Institute and partner at MuArts, a brain-computer-interfaces software and hardware development project.

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