Consciousness On-Off Switch Discovered Deep In Brain 284
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.
Re:Very interesting (Score:4, Informative)
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)
Re:Interesting, but N=1 and... (Score:5, Informative)
The original article seems to be conspicuously missing. Here is the pubmed reference (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24967698), but the link there is broken too and even browsing through the journal's archive doesn't bring up any reference to the article. Hopefully that gets fixed very soon.
Also, back when I was PhD student in neuroscience Crick and Koch's idea that the claustrum was the seat of consciousness was one of my class's favorite jokes- if it turns out they were actually right I'm gonna be so f-ing mad.
Re:This is scary (Score:2, Informative)
General anathesia is actually quite dangerous. This could potentially make surgery a lot safer.
Let's not jump to conclusions. (Score:3, Informative)
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. [nih.gov]
Re:This is scary (Score:5, Informative)
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.