Giulio Tononi () is a neuroscientist and psychiatrist who holds the David P. White Chair in Sleep Medicine, as well as a Distinguished Chair in Consciousness Science, at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

. He is best known for his Integrated Information Theory (IIT), a mathematical theory of consciousness, which he has proposed since 2004.

Biography

Tononi was born in

Trento Trento ( or ; Ladin and lmo, Trent; german: Trient ; cim, Tria; , ), also anglicized as Trent, is a city on the Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th centu ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

, and obtained an M.D. in psychiatry and a Ph.D. in

neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, developme ...

at the

Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies , latin_name = , image = , motto = L'eccellenza come disciplina , mottoeng = Committed to excellence , established = 1987 from previously existing institutions , type = State-supported , administrative_staff ...

Pisa Pisa ( , or ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, central Italy, straddling the Arno just before it empties into the Ligurian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa. Although Pisa is known worldwide for its leaning tower, the ci ...

, Italy. He is an authority on sleep, and in particular the genetics and

etiology Etiology (pronounced ; alternatively: aetiology or ætiology) is the study of causation or origination. The word is derived from the Greek (''aitiología'') "giving a reason for" (, ''aitía'', "cause"); and ('' -logía''). More completely, ...

of sleep. Tononi and collaborators have pioneered several complementary approaches to study sleep: * genomics * proteomics * fruit fly models * rodent models employing multiunit / local field potential recordings in behaving animals * in vivo voltammetry and microscopy * high-density EEG recordings and

transcranial magnetic stimulation Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive form of brain stimulation in which a changing magnetic field is used to induce an electric current at a specific area of the brain through electromagnetic induction. An electric pulse gener ...

(TMS) in humans * large-scale

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These prog ...

models of sleep and wakefulness This research has led to a comprehensive hypothesis on the function of sleep (proposed with sleep researcher Chiara Cirelli), the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis. According to the hypothesis, wakefulness leads to a net increase in

synaptic strength Chemical synapses are biological junctions through which neurons' signals can be sent to each other and to non-neuronal cells such as those in muscles or glands. Chemical synapses allow neurons to form circuits within the central nervous syste ...

, and sleep is necessary to reestablish synaptic

homeostasis In biology, homeostasis ( British also homoeostasis) (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physical, and chemical conditions maintained by living systems. This is the condition of optimal functioning for the organism and ...

. The hypothesis has implications for understanding the effects of sleep deprivation and for developing novel diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to sleep disorders and neuropsychiatric disorders. Tononi is a leader in the field of

consciousness studies Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scient ...

, and has co-authored a book on the subject with Nobel prize winner

Gerald Edelman Gerald Maurice Edelman (; July 1, 1929 – May 17, 2014) was an American biologist who shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work with Rodney Robert Porter on the immune system. Edelman's Nobel Prize-winning research concer ...

. Tononi also developed the integrated information theory (IIT): a theory of what consciousness is, how it can be measured, how it is correlated with brain states, and why it fades when we fall into dreamless sleep and returns when we dream. The theory is being tested with neuroimaging, Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and computer models. His work has been described as "the only really promising fundamental theory of consciousness" by collaborator

Christof Koch Christof Koch ( ; born November 13, 1956) is a German-American neurophysiologist and computational neuroscientist best known for his work on the neural basis of consciousness. He is the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for B ...

Works

* * * * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tononi, Giulio Sleep researchers American psychiatrists American consciousness researchers and theorists Living people Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies alumni 1960 births University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty