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:Can be stimulated via sternocleidomastoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Vulcan neck pinch?
Re:Can be stimulated via sternocleidomastoid (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you sure that's the mechanism at work? "pressure along the sternocleidomastoid" sounds suspiciously like "put someone in a triangle choke/'sleeper hold'", which will cause them to pass out because it cuts off the blood supply to their brain.