Scientific Personnel

Brief Bio

Theofanis Panagiotaropoulos holds a Master’s degree (2002) and a PhD in Cognitive Science (2006) from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology (1999) from Panteion University. His career includes significant research roles at leading institutions such as the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), the Centre for Systems Neuroscience at the University of Leicester, and King’s College London in the United Kingdom, as well as the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Germany. In 2024, he joined NKUA as an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and concurrently assumed the role of Affiliated Investigator at the Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens.

His  research  focuses on understanding the neural mechanisms that support cognitive processes, with a particular emphasis on conscious  perception  and the predictive processing of sensory information. His work utilizes advanced neural recording technologies, such as Utah and Neuropixels electrode arrays, alongside sophisticated signal analysis and machine learning methods. Over the course of his career, he has made significant contributions to Cognitive Neuroscience, particularly in clarifying the  role of the prefrontal cortex in conscious visual perception. His findings have been published in  leading scientific journals.  Additionally,  he  actively  participates  in  international  research  collaborations   and  frequently presents his work as an invited speaker at major international conferences.

 

Selected Publications

Cogitate Consortium, Ferrante O, Gorska-Klimowska U, Henin S, Hirschhorn R, Khalaf A, Lepauvre A, Liu L, Richter D, Vidal Y, Bonacchi N, Brown T, Sripad P, Armendariz M, Bendtz K, Ghafari T, Hetenyi D, Jeschke J, Kozma C, Mazumder DR, Montenegro S, Seedat A, Sharafeldin A, Yang S, Baillet S, Chalmers DJ, Cichy RM, Fallon F, Panagiotaropoulos TI, Blumenfeld H, de Lange FP, Devore S, Jensen O, Kreiman G, Luo H, Boly M, Dehaene S, Koch C, Tononi G, Pitts M, Mudrik L, Melloni L. An adversarial collaboration to critically evaluate theories of consciousness. Nature (accepted for publication).

Rey HG, Panagiotaropoulos TI, Gutierrez L, Chaure FJ, Nasimbera A, Cordisco S, Nishida F, Valentin A, Alarcon G, Richardson MP, Kochen S, Quian Quiroga R. (2025) Lack of context modulation in human single neuron responses in the medial temporal lobe. Cell Rep. 44(1):115218. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2024.115218.

Panagiotaropoulos TI. (2024) An integrative view of the role of prefrontal cortex in consciousness. Neuron 112(10):1626-1641. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.04.028

Bellet MG, Gay M, Bellet J, Jarraya B, Dehaene S, van Kerkoerle T, Panagiotaropoulos TI. (2024). Spontaneously emerging internal models of visual sequences combine abstract and event specific information in the prefrontal cortex. Cell Rep. 43(3):113952. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.10.04.463064

Dwarakanath A, Kapoor V, Fedorov L, Safavi S, Werner J, Logothetis NK, Panagiotaropoulos TI. (2023) Bistability of prefrontal states gates access to consciousness. Neuron 111(10):1666-1683.e4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2023.02.027

Kapoor V, Dwarakanath A, Safavi S, Werner J, Besserve M, Panagiotaropoulos TI, Logothetis NK. (2022) Decoding internally generated transitions of conscious contents in the prefrontal cortex without subjective reports. Nature Communications 13, 1535. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28897-2

Bellet J, Gay M, Dwarakanath A, Jarraya B, van Kerkoerle T, Dehaene S, Panagiotaropoulos TI*. (2022) Decoding rapidly presented visual stimuli from prefrontal ensembles without report nor postperceptual processing. Neurosci Conscious niac005. https://doi.org/10.1093/nc/niac005

Panagiotaropoulos TI, Dwarakanath A, Kapoor V. (2020) Prefrontal cortex and consciousness: Beware of the signals. Trends Cogn Sci 24:343-344. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.02.005 [Impact Factor 19.9]

Safavi S, Dwarakanath A, Kapoor V, Hatsopoulos NG, Logothetis NK, Panagiotaropoulos TI. (2018). Non-monotonic spatial structure of inter-neuronal correlations in prefrontal microcircuits. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 115(15): E3539-E3548. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1802356115 [Impact Factor 11.1]

Panagiotaropoulos TI, Deco G, Kapoor V, Logothetis NK. (2012) Neuronal discharges and gamma oscillations explicitly reflect visual consciousness in the lateral prefrontal cortex. Neuron 74, 924-935. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2012.04.013 [Impact Factor 16.2]

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