
Consciousness on-off switch discovered deep in brain - chanux
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329762.700-consciousness-onoff-switch-discovered-deep-in-brain.html?full=true
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wpietri
The result is really interesting, and I would love to read more when they
reach n=5. (Or even n=1 on a reasonably normal brain.)

But Crick's notion sounds a lot like what Dennett derisively calls the
"Cartesian Theater", the tendency to imagine consciousness as little room
where a tiny homunculus watches the screens where all sensory data is
displayed:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_theater)

In Dennett's view, consciousness is basically a distributed system. There is
no single place where consciousness "really happens". That a single electrode
can disrupt consciousness doesn't suggest otherwise. If a backhoe hitting a
cable junction triggered an AWS failure, we wouldn't say that the cable
junction is where AWS "really happens".

~~~
Gravityloss
I would assume these researchers are well aware of such problems. I still
think it's very important to research it.

If we take a signal like a certain sound that evokes an experience, or we can
even ask the person to do some conscious processing based on the sound, the
sound could be a question like "what is the color of the sky?". We can follow
the signal: We can see first some mechanical preprocessing steps in the ear,
then some neural preprocessing steps, and the signal is branched out, lots of
different brain areas are probably activated and then again some fine movement
post processing steps are done so that the person finally answers "blue".

I think it would be premature say that all the trivial very low level
preprocessing steps in the ear are just as a relevant part of the conscious
experience of hearing the question, as the understanding of the question.

Say, in a stretched analogy, if someone would like to understand how the
computer can calculate some ray tracing or use some compression algorithms, it
would not be that important to just understand how on die caches or PCI
express lanes work. The important bit is to understand how instructions cause
the ALU:s to wrangle the bits in registers, that's the core of the magic, most
of the other stuff is relatively trivial pre- and postprocessing.

So in this sense I think the question is well posed.

There's also practical implications. Think if we could have reliable
anesthesia (or the hypnosis part of it, you might still need pain killers and
muscle relaxants). We might have very few side effects. We would not have to
give big doses just to be safe. This could mean much faster recovery after
anesthesia. Also costs of anesthesia would drop immensely if it could be even
better controlled than it is now. It costs a lot to stay in a hospital. Also
if you're unconscious, you have to be taken care of, again tying people...

~~~
_bdog
The reliable anesthesia you are talking about more or less exists. It's called
Ketamine.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketamine)

~~~
simonster
Ketamine is indeed safer than many other anesthetics in terms of the risk of
respiratory depression, which is why it is a common choice for veterinary
anesthesia. However, it's not uniformly better than more conventional
anesthetics. Its half-life is substantially longer than that of propofol, so
it actually takes longer to recover from. There is also some evidence that
repeated administration of ketamine can produce brain damage, although it's
unclear whether this is clinically relevant.

As long as we're on the topic of targeting the claustrum specifically with
pharmaceutical agents, I'll point out that the claustrum has a particularly
high density of kappa opioid receptors, which are the target of salvinorin A,
the active constituent of the psychotropic plant Salvia divinorum [1]. Of
course we have no evidence the plant's effects are specifically related to its
action in the claustrum.

[1] Smythies, J., Edelstein, L., & Ramachandran, V. (2012). Hypotheses
relating to the function of the claustrum. Frontiers in Integrative
Neuroscience, 6. doi:10.3389/fnint.2012.00053

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TheBiv
"Although only tested in one person"

As a classically trained scientist, I fail to see how this can be newsworthy
given how big of revelation this would be to broader scientific discovery and
how statistically invalid this claim is at this point.

However, as legend would have it, psychologist B.F. Skinner was famous for
performing his experiments on a single cat/dog. When prodded by other
psychologists on how he could claim his results were valid since he only
tested it on one subject, he would say "Well, bring me your cat"

~~~
robbiep
Most neurology reports are case reports of 1 patient, the most notable of all
of course being Phineas Gauge.

~~~
TheBiv
Howdy! I definitely understand how a lot of neurological progress has happened
with single person experiments.

I guess my main quip is how matter-of-fact this article expresses the finding!

Then again, I may just be arguing over semantics and not taking the gist of
the finding. I appreciate your simple note to remind me of the fact that the
finding is the cool thing, not the words used when being reported!

~~~
robbiep
Very courteous reply. With regard to the tone of the article, I guess you
could say new scientist often take that tone. Have a nice day!

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FatalLogic
I think some readers might be mistaking this for a 'Self-awareness on-off
switch'

The subject's state could be compared to somebody in certain phases of sleep
or in a coma. Not the same as those, but quite close. A quote in the article
describes her as being 'still awake', but I wonder what that means.

It's not like the subject became a zombie. According to the very brief
description, she just became completely unresponsive, didn't do anything, and
had no memory of what had happened.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Yes it seems the claustrum integrates all your sensorial input, I'd also
really like to know more about the subjective experience of it being switched
off.

~~~
FatalLogic
The article repeatedly gives the impression of an abrupt change, by using
words like 'switched' and 'stopped', but the description used later makes it
sound like a more 'normal', gradual process.

 _she gradually spoke more quietly or moved less and less until she drifted
into unconsciousness._

That part of the process sounds very similar to someone undergoing anesthesia,
or simply falling asleep. Though there are obvious differences.

So maybe that's what it feels like? Some people remember the feeling of going
under, but maybe not the last few seconds of it.

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jjallen
My favorite part:

"Koubeissi thinks that the results do indeed suggest that the claustrum plays
a vital role in triggering conscious experience. "I would liken it to a car,"
he says. "A car on the road has many parts that facilitate its movement – the
gas, the transmission, the engine – but there's only one spot where you turn
the key and it all switches on and works together. So while consciousness is a
complicated process created via many structures and networks – we may have
found the key."

~~~
evincarofautumn
“We may have found the key” is a short phrase containing only Germanic origin
words, so it sounds “strong”; and occurring last, giving you serial position
bias.

~~~
nagrom
No. The German word for key is schlüßel. The English word key is derived from
the French word clé, meaning key.

~~~
keerthiko
According to Google[1] key in English is from an old English word of unknown
origin. It also doesn't mean it has to come from the word of the exact same
meaning in its origin language

[1]
[https://www.google.com/webhp?ie=UTF-8#q=etymology%20key](https://www.google.com/webhp?ie=UTF-8#q=etymology%20key)

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RivieraKid
I don't see the importance of this study outside of the neuroscience field.
They just found another way of making people to stop reacting to external
stimuli.

I've come to the conclusion, that science will never be able to even _define_
consciousness, let alone explain it.

~~~
h1karu
exactamondo, but isn't science merely an epiphenomenon of consciousness ? If
so isn't this a case of the snake trying to eat it's own tail ?

~~~
RivieraKid
> If so isn't this a case of the snake trying to eat it's own tail ?

Pretty much. Consciousness is one level above science in a way, so every
attempt to _only_ use science to explain consciousness will fail.
Consciousness is a metaphysical concept, "meta" = an abstraction layer above.

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rectangletangle
Very interesting. Naturally I'm skeptical due to the small sample size, and
them seemingly only testing her auditory, and motor responses. However, the
apparent gradual dampening of her reactions is indeed intriguing, it'd be nice
to see some sort of follow up study.

If they indeed found an on/off switch, it'd be interesting to attempt to
"kickstart" some coma victims. If it works, it'd be a major breakthrough.

~~~
Someone
Lots of neurology results are on truly small data sizes. You can't insert
electrodes into brains or cut out brain parts at will for ethical reasons, so
you have to wait for a patient where you have to insert one in just the right
place for other reasons.

So, it may be a while before you see that follow-up study.

On a side note, the combination of antibiotics with fast recovery of injured
soldiers has been very beneficial to neurology, as it meant that neurologists
saw more living patients with horrific brain injuries.

It is unlikely that anybody would find this in patients with traumatic
injuries, though. A projectile damaging this area deep in the brain likely
would take out lots of other areas, too, and would be lethal, even if one gets
the patient in a hospital within minutes.

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nmac
Im not sure why there seem to be some negative comments, this is absolutely
amazing- albeit a little scary in a sci-fi clockwork orange kind of way...

Additionally, consciousness gets commonly defined in philosophy of mind as the
"likeness" of sensation and perception (i.e. its "like" something to smell
roses and its "like" something to hear Mozart). So, this study cuts at the
root of consciousness.

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EGreg
I wonder what
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Greenfield,_Baroness_Gree...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Greenfield,_Baroness_Greenfield)
would say about that ... she always says that consciousness isn't found in any
one part

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Consciousness is not found in one part. To use a software analogy, they have
commented out the main() function - but what makes the system what it is is
all the code and it's mutual interactions - but it won't run with that
important function removed.

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md224
I'm doubtful we can really "prove" true unconsciousness exists (in the sense
that subjective awareness completely ceases) until we have a much more
advanced understanding of how experience arises in the brain. Right now the
most we can say is "X results in an amnesic, non-responsive state". After all,
if we rely on self-reporting, how can someone remember being unconscious if
they have no memory of it?

Also, the article keeps saying _the_ claustrum, but don't we have one in each
hemisphere? Which one did the scientists stimulate, and what would happen if
you stimulated the other one?

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andrewtbham
When people think about the future and artificial intelligence, they have all
these crazy ideas about robots becoming conscious like skynet in terminator or
Hal on 2001 a space odyssey. But I suspect the opposite will be true. Things
like the human brain project in the EU and the brain initiative in the US, and
other research are likely to explain human consciousness. I suspect it will
answer long standing questions about spirituality. And by time we implement
sophisticated AI, consciousness won't be a mystery.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Consciousness and AI have almost nothing to do with each-other. Human beings
only reason when awake and self-aware, but this is most likely a quirk of ours
(ie: the daemon `cognit` only runs at init-level 3), not a fundamental feature
of cognition.

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staunch
They're pointing a zapper at different "areas" of someone's head and seeing
what happens. That's what counts for brain science today. We have a long way
to go.

~~~
macspoofing
So?

Fundamental physics is done by smashing particles together and seeing what
happens. We've gotten tremendously far with this approach. Do you have a
better idea?

~~~
canjobear
Before smashing particles together, physicists use mathematical models to
predict exactly what they will see given different assumptions, usually with
incredibly high degrees of accuracy. There are no such models of higher-level
cognitive processes in neuroscience. They are very different.

~~~
macspoofing
>Before smashing particles together, physicists use mathematical models to
predict exactly what they will see given different assumptions, usually with
incredibly high degrees of accuracy.

Not necessarily. In the 1950s and 1960s when we started exploring higher
energy levels, we didn't really have a model or theory that predicted all the
particles we ended up seeing. That came after.

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ommunist
Well, a hammer also makes a good consciousness switch. Especially when
combined with needles and applied to nails. Seriously, how can you discuss a
marginal case with absolutely no statistical evidence. Do apes have claustrum?
If yes - run on them, then speak sense. Besides, brains are immensely
resilient and damaged parts functionality can be replaced functionally by
other brain regions.

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thathonkey
I listened to an episode of Radiolab about 3 "Black Boxes" lately and the
first one is about this mysterious threshold in the brain between
consciousness and unconsciousness.

Here is the episode if anyone is interested:
[http://www.radiolab.org/story/black-
box/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/black-box/)

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theFish
I think this book fits nicely in here: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Ego-Tunnel-
Science-Mind/dp/0465020...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Ego-Tunnel-Science-
Mind/dp/0465020690)

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ivan_ah
There's a more thoughtful take on the paper on Conscious Entities:
[http://www.consciousentities.com/?p=1673](http://www.consciousentities.com/?p=1673)

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mathattack
I like that it was Crick who gave some early research. Good to see that some
scientists do get a second act. If he had published and survived, would this
have been a second Nobel?

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gambler
_I 've found that unplugging radio from the wall makes it stop talking. This
is a great step forward in finding how it works!_

This is how it sounds to me.

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PeterGriffin
> "Counter-intuitively, Koubeissi's team found that the woman's loss of
> consciousness was associated with increased synchrony of electrical
> activity, or brainwaves, in the frontal and parietal regions of the brain
> that participate in conscious awareness. Although different areas of the
> brain are thought to synchronise activity to bind different aspects of an
> experience together, too much synchronisation seems to be bad. The brain
> can't distinguish one aspect from another, stopping a cohesive experience
> emerging."

Right, counter-intuitively... As long as we'll be making up reasons based on
that piece of data, how about this:

Global synchrony occurs when a brain is recovering from an unknown or detected
bad state, and all major parts of the brain say "HLO" to each other to notify
for their existence, proper operation and to establish connection. So it's not
that it's bad to be synchronous, but the lack of information from critical
parts of the brain causes it to repeatedly reboot in order to recover from a
bad state forced by electric rods in the brain.

Hey, I'm a scientist!

Seriously though, why aren't we thinking about what the implications of our
experimental data would be on a _distributed computing system_ , which our
brain is, instead of giving silly "it's like the key in a car" explanations,
assigning causality randomly and without merit?

~~~
marmaduke
The result isn't counter-intuitive to those familiar with fairly basic human
neuroscience. When you close your eyes, for example, low frequency, long-range
synchronization also increases.

The stated "counter-intuitive"-ness is more likely an artifact of the
translation of the result to layman's terms, where the traditional (since the
industrial revolution) way of thinking about the brain and mind is that it is
a machine, and the function of this machine is consciousness. I think several
such artifacts often appear in these sorts of articles on neuroscience.

If you wish to actually understand and interpret the results for yourself,
without the crude and inevitably inaccurate lens of the science writer, you
have to read some of the books written by neuroscientists themselves. Rhythms
of the Brain by Gyorgy Buzsaki is the best I've read so far.

~~~
PeterGriffin
Thanks.

And yet, nothing you said really rejects my made up explanation, even more, it
supports it (the visual center stops sending information as it lacks input,
and synchronization attempts begin).

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greenyoda
Link to the original article that this article is quoting from:

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329762.700-conscious...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329762.700-consciousness-
onoff-switch-discovered-deep-in-brain.html?full=true)

~~~
dang
Yes. Changed from [http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/07/consciousness-on-off-
switch-...](http://www.jwz.org/blog/2014/07/consciousness-on-off-switch-
discovered-deep-in-brain/).

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tinystark
if it comes in some device form I can use it to switch off my consciousness
when recovery agents come to my home..

~~~
rasz_pl
Its more likely that 'recovery agents' will use this device on you in a dark
alley so they can recover some organs in demand.

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zaroth
And people are concerned about how Facebook ranks their wall posts?

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opbreadsticks
Now they can turn us off just like Data did to the Borg......

~~~
goldenkey
relevant:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4ApQrbhQp8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4ApQrbhQp8)

