Jun 12, 2026 07:41 PM
A small part of your brain may still be listening under anesthesia
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-small-par...anesthesia
EXCERPTS: "Our findings show that the brain is far more active and capable during unconsciousness than previously thought," says neurosurgeon Sameer Sheth, from the Baylor College of Medicine.
"Even when patients are fully anesthetized, their brains continue to analyze the world around them."
The hippocampus handles important jobs in terms of learning and memory. The researchers wanted to take a look at the hippocampus under anesthesia because it sits deep within the brain, far from where sensory information is first processed, in the cortex.
[...] The findings suggest that certain processing abilities may not be anchored to consciousness, and can be carried out without us being 'awake'. It's an idea that's been gaining momentum in recent years, but remains difficult to study.
[...] This also plays into a much wider field of research probing how the brain carries out tasks subconsciously, the study team notes. Being able to separate one voice in the babble of a crowded party is something we might take for granted, but it requires a lot of clever processing. Given how murky our understanding of consciousness is, there is lots more work to do... (MORE - details)
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Cognition (identification and understanding) doesn't have to be experienced. Self-driving cars analyze incoming information about their immediate environment without that being presented as visual manifestations. Inversely, a human might even be having phenomenal experiences while under anesthesia, but they would have no recollection of that after waking if those are not stored in memory. Akin to people who claim they can never remember their dreams and consequently infer that they don't dream. Anesthesia might disable information storage, though this study could hint otherwise.
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-small-par...anesthesia
EXCERPTS: "Our findings show that the brain is far more active and capable during unconsciousness than previously thought," says neurosurgeon Sameer Sheth, from the Baylor College of Medicine.
"Even when patients are fully anesthetized, their brains continue to analyze the world around them."
The hippocampus handles important jobs in terms of learning and memory. The researchers wanted to take a look at the hippocampus under anesthesia because it sits deep within the brain, far from where sensory information is first processed, in the cortex.
[...] The findings suggest that certain processing abilities may not be anchored to consciousness, and can be carried out without us being 'awake'. It's an idea that's been gaining momentum in recent years, but remains difficult to study.
[...] This also plays into a much wider field of research probing how the brain carries out tasks subconsciously, the study team notes. Being able to separate one voice in the babble of a crowded party is something we might take for granted, but it requires a lot of clever processing. Given how murky our understanding of consciousness is, there is lots more work to do... (MORE - details)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Cognition (identification and understanding) doesn't have to be experienced. Self-driving cars analyze incoming information about their immediate environment without that being presented as visual manifestations. Inversely, a human might even be having phenomenal experiences while under anesthesia, but they would have no recollection of that after waking if those are not stored in memory. Akin to people who claim they can never remember their dreams and consequently infer that they don't dream. Anesthesia might disable information storage, though this study could hint otherwise.