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Consciousness On-Off Switch Discovered Deep In Brain
An anonymous reader writes "One moment you're conscious, the next you're not. For the first time, researchers have switched off consciousness by electrically stimulating a single brain area. Although only tested in one person, the discovery suggests that a single area – the claustrum – might be integral to combining disparate brain activity into a seamless package of thoughts, sensations and emotions. It takes us a step closer to answering a problem that has confounded scientists and philosophers for millennia – namely how our conscious awareness arises. When the team zapped the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness. She stopped reading and stared blankly into space, she didn't respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of the event. The same thing happened every time the area was stimulated during two days of experiments.
That sounds like the experiments that my wife has been doin
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Karnal
...did it also coincide with the TV being turned on?
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So we have a bunch of male scientists who apparently didn't know about rufies.
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If you want to knock people unconscious, there are already less invasive ways of doing it, like general anesthesia. Though it would be interesting to know whether general anesthesia operates by a mechanism related to this one, or is doing something else.
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From TFA:
Anil Seth, who studies consciousness at the University of Sussex, UK, warns that we have to be cautious when interpreting behaviour from a single case study. The woman was missing part of her hippocampus, which was removed to treat her epilepsy, so she doesn't represent a "normal" brain, he says.
Normally a scientist will not ethically be able to put deep brain electrodes in a person, but this was likely part of a larger experiment related to the hippocampus surgery. It will be interesting to see if similar cases present similar behaviors and more interesting if the same thing happens in someone with a full hippocampus.
I have been experimenting with this technique since the early 80s. It is possible to stimulate the claustrum via pressure along the sternocleidomastoid. By pinching this area it causes sympathetic nerve activity that can effective render someone unconscious. My colleague has perfected the technique to the point that he uses it at parties. Quite eerie, actually.
Peace. Stay healthy and have a long life..
Forget implant devices. With enough mental training, Vulcans can stimulate this part of the humanoid brain just by pinching someone on the neck.
(Luckily, humanoids have very similar physiology in their nervous systems.)
If you want to knock people unconscious, there are already less invasive ways of doing it, like general anesthesia. Though it would be interesting to know whether general anesthesia operates by a mechanism related to this one, or is doing something else.
They have no idea... http://www.surgeryencyclopedia.com/A-Ce/Anesthesia-General.html
Having had anesthesia many times I think it is worse than most procedures. I feel fuzzy for months after GA. Still it's about the only game in town if someone is going to be carving on a person for medical reasons.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
I don't know, should we find it *what* exactly, you didn't really state that. Surprising? No, it's not, that's indeed the survival instinct taking over. In general your breathing is not conscious, although we have conscious control unlike for example your heart. But in general it's not possible for example to hold your breath until you are dead. There are some ways to hold your breath until you pass out, but the moment you do you start breathing again. (All this AFAIK)
These studies clearly demonstrate that the Cl is richly innervated with a wide and diverse array of neurotransmitters and neuromodulators. Lesion, stimulation and recording experiments demonstrate that the functional and physiologic capacity of the Cl is quite robust. A recurring theme of claustral function appears to be its involvement in sensorimotor integration. This may be expected of the Cl, given the degree of heterotopic, heterosensory convergence and its interconnectivity with the key subcortical nuclei and sensory cortical areas. The Cl remains a poorly understood and under investigated nucleus.
It makes sense that a major loss of function is associated with interrupting the Claustrum - but there are several nuclii in the brain - the Hippocampus being one. Claiming it is the 'one true center of consciousness' in the brain doesn't account for the countless studies which reveal just how complex the operation of our neural networks actually are, and may be premature.
References
[1]The claustrum: a historical review of its anatomy, physiology, cytochemistry and functional significance. Edelstein LR1, Denaro FJ.
We've been doing all surgery with no Anastasia since 1918
That's the Zzz spot, not the G spot.
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General anesthetic is actually a lot more crude than most people think. It's essentially a short-term induced coma, that's why they need to jam a breathing tube down your throat and it feels like you just gave Satan a blowjob when they bring you out.
This sounds like the first baby steps towards developing a drug-free method of dropping patients out of consciousness, maybe even with little to no side effects.
Forget the comedy - this might be an invention that could make long distance flying bearable! Turn off your brain after take off and back on for landing with no memory of many hours of sitting in a tin can in between.