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From Humans to Worms, Anesthesia Pushes Nervous Systems Into The Same Strange State
ScienceAlert • • health
Key Points:
- A new study published in Nature Neuroscience reveals that general anesthesia causes a breakdown in coordinated neural activity across diverse species, from humans to nematodes, indicating a universal mechanism behind anesthesia-induced unconsciousness.
- Researchers led by Andrea Luppi analyzed brain activity in six species spanning 700 million years of evolution, finding that anesthesia disrupts the interaction between brain regions without completely shutting down neural function.
- The study showed that under anesthesia, brain activity becomes more chaotic and loses its usual predictable patterns, leading to a spatiotemporal fragmentation that isolates local neural circuits and disrupts consciousness.
- These findings suggest that the effect of anesthesia on consciousness is conserved across species, providing insights into a common neural pathway and potentially broadening our understanding of animal consciousness.
- Experts not involved in the study highlight that anesthesia disrupts consciousness by fragmenting brain activity rather than turning the brain off, marking a significant advance in understanding how anesthetics work.
