Christof Koch

Christof Koch (

Koch has authored more than 350 scientific papers and six books about how computers and neurons process information.^[7]

In 1986, Koch and Shimon Ullman proposed the idea of a visual saliency map in the primate visual system.^[8][9][10] Subsequently, his then PhD-student, Laurent Itti, and Koch developed a popular suite of visual saliency algorithms.^[11][12]

For over two decades, Koch and his students have carried out detailed biophysical simulations of the electrical properties of neuronal tissue, from simulating the details of the action potential propagation along axons and dendrites to the synthesis of the local field potential and the EEG from the electrical activity of large populations of excitable neurons.

Since the early 1990s, Koch has argued that identifying the mechanistic basis of consciousness is a scientifically tractable problem, and has been influential in arguing that consciousness can be approached using the modern tools of neurobiology. He and his student Nao Tsuchiya invented continuous flash suppression,^[13] an efficient psychophysical masking technique for rendering images invisible for many seconds. They have used this technique to argue that selective attention and consciousness are distinct phenomena, with distinct biological functions and mechanisms.

Koch's primary collaborator in the endeavor of locating the neural correlates of consciousness was the molecular biologist turned neuroscientist, Francis Crick, starting with their first paper in 1990^[14] and their last one, that Crick edited on the day of his death, July 24, 2004, on the relationship between the claustrum, a mysterious anatomical structure situated underneath the insular cortex, and consciousness.^[15][16]

Over the last decade, Koch has worked closely with the psychiatrist and neuroscientist

Koch writes a popular column, Consciousness Redux, for Scientific American Mind on scientific and popular topics pertaining to consciousness.

Koch co-founded the Methods in

Koch is a proponent of the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of complex nervous networks. In 2014, he published a short discussion work, In which I argue that consciousness is a fundamental property of complex things, where he introduced the concept that consciousness is a fundamental property of networked entities, and therefore cannot be derived from anything else, since it is a simple substance.^[25]

In 2023, Koch lost a 25-year bet to philosopher David Chalmers. Koch bet that the neural underpinnings of consciousness will be well-understood by 2023, while Chalmers bet the contrary. Upon losing, Koch gifted Chalmers a case of fine wine.^[26]

Koch is a vegetarian,^[27][28][5] a bicyclist, and an experienced rock climber.^[29][30]

• Methods in Neuronal Modeling: From Ions to Networks, The MIT Press, (1998),
  ISBN 0-262-11231-0
• Biophysics of Computation: Information Processing in Single Neurons, Oxford Press, (1999),
  ISBN 0-19-518199-9
• ISBN 0-9747077-0-8
• Consciousness: Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist, The MIT Press, (2012),
  ISBN 978-0-262-01749-7
• The Feeling of Life Itself - Why Consciousness is Widespread but Can't be Computed, The MIT Press, (2019),
  ISBN 9780262042819
• Then I am Myself the World - What Consciousness is and How to Expand It, Basic Books, (2024),
  ISBN 9781541602809