University of Cambridge — Department of Clinical Neurosciences
Prof Emmanuel Stamatakis
Tuesday, December 08, 2026
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)
About the Project
Summary
How does subjective experience emerge from the activity of billions of neurons? Why does consciousness disappear during anaesthesia, become profoundly altered by psychedelic drugs, and sometimes endure despite severe brain injury? These questions lie at the heart of one of the greatest unsolved problems in science. Our research combines neuroimaging and computational neuroscience to uncover the principles that make conscious experience possible. Recent work from the group suggests that consciousness depends not simply on activity within individual brain regions, but on the brain's capacity to integrate information and coordinate communication across large-scale networks. We investigate these mechanisms across a wide range of altered states, including anaesthesia, psychedelics and disorders of consciousness following severe brain injury.
Project aims
Current projects utilise multimodal MRI and EEG data alongside cutting-edge approaches such as network neuroscience, machine learning and whole-brain computational modelling. By comparing diverse states of consciousness, we aim to identify fundamental organisational principles that generalise across both healthy and pathological brain function. Students joining this programme will contribute to an internationally recognised effort to understand one of the deepest questions in neuroscience while developing expertise in advanced neuroimaging, data science and computational modelling. Experience with neuroimaging, network analysis or scientific programming (Python, MATLAB, Linux) would be advantageous.
Contact
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Yj0y0swAAAAJ&hl=en
https://sites.google.com/site/ccigcambridge
Funding Notes
For academic year October 27/28;
Gates US applications (round 1) close 14th October 26, further information available via Gates Website; View Website
Cambridge Trust, Gates Cambridge (round 2) deadline 8th December 26 to be eligible for funding. If you apply after the funding deadlines you will not be eligible for the Cambridge Funding competition, please indicate in your application all the funding you are eligible for. You can also check funding search Search - Postgraduate Funding Search
Funding is not available for Lent or Easter 27 places as the funding deadline for these has already passed, you will need to have other funding in place to support your studies
Open Days
17 September 2026 — Multiple dates
University of Cambridge — Postgraduate College Visit Days
Cambridge (United Kingdom) — View event
