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New Imaging Technique Helps Explain Unconsciousness
smitty777 writes "A new imaging technique called fEITER (for functional Electrical Impedance Tomography by Evoked Response) attempts to explain the process of slipping into unconsciousness. The fEITER is a portable device that creates 3D imagery based on evoked potentials measured hundreds of times a second. The interesting finding from these studies is that unconsciousness appears to result from a buildup of inhibitor neurons. From the article: 'Our findings suggest that unconsciousness may be the increase of inhibitory assemblies across the brain's cortex. These findings lend support to Greenfield's hypothesis of neural assemblies forming consciousness.'"
Must be a build-up of inhibitory assemblies.
Or maybe just a buildup of sunshine and nice weather outside.
I can see the fnords!
"Outside"?
That big room with the leaky roof and the big light.
FTFA:
The machine itself is a portable, light-weight monitor, which can fit on a small trolley. It has 32 electrodes that are fitted around the patient’s head. A small, high-frequency electric current (too small to be felt or have any effect) is passed between two of the electrodes, and the voltages between other pairs of electrodes are measured in a process that takes less than one-thousandth of a second.
While we're still a long way away from a practical direct neural interface, this certainly looks like a step in the right direction. They've demonstrated that the measurements are possible, and at a sample rate that is useful. Certainly there's room for improvement in sensitivity, sample rate, and resolution as well as in miniaturization.
When they can reduce this from a trolleycart -sized instrument to something one can support on one's head, then we'll see some more practical and less academic applications. (Yes, like porn. And games. And real virtual reality control of UAVs and waldoes.) Keep in mind that in the 80's, realtime Heads-Up Displays were this large and cumbersome... now look at them.
It really is illuminating to see how little we know about the nature of consciousness and thought, and how far away we still are from technologically-aided introspection.
I can see the fnords!
"Method to increase of inhibitory assemblies across the brain's cortex using an imaging technique"
aka 'C-SPAN'
Set your phasers on "funky"!
In the first Knights of the Old Republic game, there was an implant item whose flavor text read that it kept over-stimulation from overloading sensory brain parts, and causing damage or unconsciousness. This would be great for soldiers getting hit with IEDs, or whatnot.
I would be interested to know what constitutes a "neural assembly". I suspect than some form of coherence is involved. The question is whether or not this would be quantum coherence. This would be very difficult to establish of course, just as it was to establish quantum coherence in photosynthesis.
This is absurd. For a start, we don't have clue one about how to explain consciousness. Secondly, recording physical correlates to unconsciousness is not an explanation. Like so much of this stuff, it is description masquerading as explanation. Not bad as a start, perhaps, but don't call it "explanation".
I'm having trouble seeing what's so exciting about explaining unconsciousness. Explaining consciousness would be exciting. I realize understanding what makes a person unconscious might help to understand what makes a person conscious. But not in this case. If they're just saying the presence of these inhibitors makes a person unconscious, then we're no closer to understanding consciousness. Because you can't just make an unconscious object become conscious by taking away these inhibitors. And you have no insight into bringing consciousness to something that never had it, regardless of whether these inhibitors were present. Maybe it could somehow help find a treatment for comas or something. Maybe those people are overloaded with these inhibitors. I don't know.
You don't have a portable solar collector and transformer? Or at least a Pasco hand crank generator? Are you sure you belong here at /.?
You are welcome on my lawn.
You're upset that the researchers don't also assume that consciousness is some other kind of thing beyond material investigation. The researchers have no need for that assumption unless and until the evidence leads them there.
conscious or unconscious, is there really a difference? it's all one in the same, isn't it?
For some, yes.
It looks like they tried to type "Feiter" as if they were normal people naming a thing, but they forgot their caps lock on.
3-D movie shows what happens in the brain as it loses consciousness...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzX7w2-FWAA (24 seconds)
I see you're from the 60s too!
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
Being asleep does not mean being unconscious. If you can be awoken by sound, light, or movement you weren't unconscious.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
You are unconscious while sleeping. If you can't be woken, that's called a coma. At least, it's a coma after some period of time. I'm not familiar with the exact technical meaning of the word. For example, being anesthetized is obviously not a coma. Let me simplify and put it another way. If you're awake, you're conscious. If you're not awake, you're unconscious. While sleeping, you are not awake, therefor you are unconscious.