Clemens Christian Bauer
Research Affiliate
Phone: (617) 870-1771
Email: cccbauer@mit.edu
Connect: Google Scholar / NCBI
Education
Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2014
M.Sc., International Health, Charite, University of Berlin, Germany, 2016
M.Sc., Cognitive Science, University of Osnabrueck, Germany, 2009
M.D., Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Guadalajara, México, 2002
Background
I am currently a a Research Affiliate at the Gabrieli Lab. I received my MD from the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara and a PhD from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. I have had a long time interest in understanding the neural correlates of subjective first person experience, in particular, the mechanisms underlying the interactions between mind/brain and body. Before joining MIT I conducted research with experienced meditators, assessing subjective phenomenology of bodily sensations that yielded specific brain activity correlates. This inspired me to further search for correlates of subjective first person experiences with neuronal activations of different networks (e.g. Default Mode Network) in the brain during controlled and sustained attentional periods, especially during meditation. Using novel real-time functional magnetic imaging methods I now can obtain a personalized fingerprint of brain networks with particular spatiotemporal signatures of brain activity, which then can be used as feedback in real time through a virtual mirror of specific mind/brain states (e.g. meditation vs distraction). This has led to the development of a personalized neuro-template for efficient neurofeedback protocols in psychopathology. In particular, it has enabled patients with schizophrenia to enhance the learning of meditation to consequently reduce their auditory hallucinations. Now I want to extend this research to other areas of mental health (e.g. anxiety, depression, dementia) as well as find accurate electroencephalographic markers to make this technique more accessible.
Check out this TEDxMIT talk:
Tune Your Mind: a personalized brain fingerprint
