Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
"Dr. Scheinin and colleagues sought networks associated with human consciousness by measuring the brain activity of adult males with positron emission tomography as they fell asleep and went under anesthesia.
“This unique experimental design was the key idea of our study and enabled us to distinguish the changes that were specific to the state of consciousness from the overall effects of anesthesia,” said first author Annalotta Scheinin.
The researchers woke participants mid-experiment to interview them and confirm their state of connectedness.
Changes in connectedness corresponded to the activity of a network comprised of regions deep inside the brain: the thalamus, anterior and posterior cingulate cortex, and angular gyri.
*These regions exhibited less blood flow when a participant lost connectedness and more blood flow when they regained it.
The pattern held true for both sleep and anesthesia, indicating the changes corresponded to connectedness rather than the effects of sleep or drugs, and that the network may be imperative for human consciousness.
“General anesthesia seems to resemble normal sleep more than has traditionally been thought,” Dr. Harry Scheinin said." BreakingScience
