What’s happening in our brains to create consciousness? In this episode we hear from two scientists uncovering clues to where dopamine fits into this mystery. It could help the recovery of people with severe brain injuries. 

Featuring Emmanual Stamatakis, who leads the cognition and consciousness imaging group at the Division of Anaesthesia, University of Cambridge in the UK and Leandro Sanz, a medical doctor and PhD candidate in medical sciences at the Coma Science Group at the University of Liège in Belgium.

Plus, the story of how artificial intelligence – and its human helpers – completed Beethoven’s unfinished 10th symphony. Ahmed Elgammal, a professor of computer science and director of the Art and AI lab at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who led the artificial intelligence side of the project, tells us how they did it. 

And Holly Squire, arts and culture editor at The Conversation in Brighton gives us some of her recommended reading from this week. 

The Conversation Weekly is produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here. Full credits for this episode available here.

Further reading

• Consciousness: how the brain chemical ‘dopamine’ plays a key role – new research, by Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Christelle Langley, Emmanuel A Stamatakis and Lennart Spindler, at the University of Cambridge
• Science as we know it can’t explain consciousness – but a revolution is coming, by Philip Goff, Durham University
• How a team of musicologists and computer scientists completed Beethoven’s unfinished 10th Symphony, by Ahmed Elgammal, Rutgers University
• Remembering the Black abolitionists of slavery in Yorkshire, by Emily Zobel Marshall, Leeds Beckett University
• How Dolly Parton’s Coat of Many Colors became an LGBTQ+ anthem, by James Barker, Newcastle University