Matt Gwyther

Matt has interests in cognitive neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind. His main focuses to date have been on the bodily basis of self-consciousness, altered states of consciousness and the neuroscience of consciousness.

Background

Matt joined ARU as a part-time Research Assistant in June 2021 after completing his MSc in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience at ARU in 2019. He is currently working as a Research Assistant on a project funded by The Bial Foundation ('Living in a Dream: Body and self experience during waking and dream states in depersonalisation').

Matt’s undergraduate BSc was in Management and Strategy at Aston Business School where he specialised in the psychology of work and organisations.

Spoken Languages

• English
• French (intermediate)

Research interests

Matt’s current research focus is on the bodily basis of self, including how neurophysiological conditions can impact the experience and representation of self during waking and dreaming. As part of this he is interested in the theoretical and practical applications of using Virtual Reality to better understand and treat conditions associated with changes to the experience of self.

His MSc dissertation compared alterations to self-consciousness during meditation and flotation from phenomenological and predictive processing perspectives. The research drew on contemporary findings around the impact of psychedelic substances on the experience and neuroscience of self.

Qualifications

• MSc Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, ARU, 2019
• BSc Management and Strategy, Aston Business School, 2013