Alan Cowey MA, PhD, Hon DSc, FMedSci, FRS.
Research Areas
Medical Sciences Division Themes
- Neuroscience
- Behavioural Science
- Imaging
Neuroscience Sub-Themes
Neuroscience Keywords
- Brain Imaging
- Brain Injury
- Cognition
- Consciousness
- Cortex
- EEG
- ERP
- fMRI
- Neuroanatomy
- Neuroscience
- Perception
- Priming
- Psychophysics
- Rehabilitation
- Retina
- Visual Perception
- Attention
Techniques and Equipment
| alan.cowey@psy.ox.ac.uk | |
| Department |
Department of Experimental Psychology
Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain Department of Clinical Neurology Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics |
| College | Lincoln College |
Alan Cowey 2007
I have carried out research for many years on the anatomical, pharmacological, physiological and behavioural bases of visual perception, visual cognition and visual awareness and their disorders in neurological patients. My approach is neurobiological and I have tried to explain how the human brain mediates perception and awareness and how the latter can be investigated by appropriate experimental techniques. At present I concentrate on studying selected neurological patients whose visual disorders can now be related much more precisely to the locus of their brain damage by using modern structural neuroimaging methods. I also established a laboratory of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in the Department of Experimental Psychology and I use TMS with both patients and normal observers to localise brain meachanisms underlying visual perception and awareness by briefly and reversibly disrupting them. With colleagues here and in other Universities I also use functional neuroimaging, EEG and MEG methods to localise such brain mechanisms and to study their properties in health and following brain damage caused by traumatic injury or stroke.
Sources of Funding
- MRC 2007- 2010
Biography
My scientific biography can be found in:
“Alan Cowey”. In: Larry R. Squire (Ed), The History of Neuroscience in Autobiography, pp 125-168. San Diego, Academic Press, 2006.
Awards Training and Qualifications
- 1957 BA, University of Cambridge
- 1961 Ph.D, University of Cambridge
- 1988 FRS, Royal Society
- 1998 FMedSci, Academy of Medical Sciences
- 2000 Hon DSc, University of Durham
Selected Publications
- Persaud Navindra, McLeod Peter, and Cowey Alan (2007) Post-decision wagering objectively measures awareness. Nat Neurosci, 10(2):257-61.
- Rao A, Nobre A C, Alexander I, and Cowey A (2006) Auditory evoked visual awareness following sudden ocular blindness: an EEG and TMS investigation. Exp Brain Res.
- Silvanto Juha, Cowey Alan, Lavie Nilli, and Walsh Vincent (2005) Striate cortex (V1) activity gates awareness of motion. Nat Neurosci, 8(2):143-4.
- Kentridge R W, Heywood C A, and Cowey A (2004) Chromatic edges, surfaces and constancies in cerebral achromatopsia. Neuropsychologia, 42(6):821-30.
- Weiskrantz L, Rao A, Hodinott-Hill I, Nobre A C, and Cowey A (2003) Brain potentials associated with conscious aftereffects induced by unseen stimuli in a blindsight subject. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 100(18):10500-5.
- Walsh V and Cowey A (2000) Transcranial magnetic stimulation and cognitive neuroscience. Nat Rev Neurosci, 1(1):73-9.
