Consciousness on-off switch discovered deep in brain

[cronus]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... 7T1uZRdWUU

Consciousness on-off switch discovered deep in brain

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.

Scientists have been probing individual regions of the brain for over a century, exploring their function by zapping them with electricity and temporarily putting them out of action. Despite this, they have never been able to turn off consciousness – until now.

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.

Many theories abound but most agree that consciousness has to involve the integration of activity from several brain networks, allowing us to perceive our surroundings as one single unifying experience rather than isolated sensory perceptions.

One proponent of this idea was Francis Crick, a pioneering neuroscientist who earlier in his career had identified the structure of DNA. Just days before he died in July 2004, Crick was working on a paper that suggested our consciousness needs something akin to an orchestra conductor to bind all of our different external and internal perceptions together.

With his colleague Christof Koch, at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, he hypothesised that this conductor would need to rapidly integrate information across distinct regions of the brain and bind together information arriving at different times. For example, information about the smell and colour of a rose, its name, and a memory of its relevance, can be bound into one conscious experience of being handed a rose on Valentine's day.

The pair suggested that the claustrum – a thin, sheet-like structure that lies hidden deep inside the brain – is perfectly suited to this job (Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B, doi.org/djjw5m).

It now looks as if Crick and Koch were on to something. In a study published last week, Mohamad Koubeissi at the George Washington University in Washington DC and his colleagues describe how they managed to switch a woman's consciousness off and on by stimulating her claustrum. The woman has epilepsy so the team were using deep brain electrodes to record signals from different brain regions to work out where her seizures originate. One electrode was positioned next to the claustrum, an area that had never been stimulated before.

(conciousness, discontinued)

[pErvinalia]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... 7T1uZRdWUU

Scientists have been probing individual regions of the brain for over a century, exploring their function by zapping them with electricity and temporarily putting them out of action. Despite this, they have never been able to turn off consciousness – until now.

They just weren't using a high enough voltage...

[JacksSmirkingRevenge]

I'm going to get a dimmer switch fitted.

[mistermack]

I'm going to get a dimmer switch fitted.

Ask rEv where he got his.

It could be a fantastic advance in the field of anaesthetics, if it tests out safe. Or just as safe as chemicals, would be good enough.

[JimC]

Switching it on and off rapidly could give a psychedelic, strobe like effect, man...

[Animavore]

I read Christof Koch's book on consciousness. Really good stuff

[mistermack]

Maybe they could find a way to earth it out, so you stay awake.

Could help those people who fall asleep all the time, or students who've got a boring teacher. Or pilots.

[cronus]

Maybe they could find a way to earth it out, so you stay awake.

Could help those people who fall asleep all the time, or students who've got a boring teacher. Or pilots.

Is it a switch for consciousness, or the seat for consciousness? Might be possible to switch it onto autopilot and create human robots? Cyber-men?

[mistermack]

Maybe they could find a way to earth it out, so you stay awake.

Could help those people who fall asleep all the time, or students who've got a boring teacher. Or pilots.

Is it a switch for consciousness, or the seat for consciousness? Might be possible to switch it onto autopilot and create human robots? Cyber-men?

Dunno.
I'm wondering how long you could be kept unconscious without adverse effects.
Chemicals are not really recommended for long periods, as far as I know. Although they kept Michael Schumaker under for months and months, but he really didn't have anything to lose.

It might make it easier to travel to Mars, if they could just put the Astronauts to sleep for six months, and wake them up when the were getting near.

[Sean Hayden]

if they could just put the Astronauts to sleep for six months

I'd be worried about losing a bit of something. What's a reboot like after a few months vs a couple of hours?

[Tero]

Can I have the switch and the coffee machine rigged to go on together?

[JimC]

I could have mine rigged to a drip-tube feeding it neat gin...