First Images of Unconsious brain activity!! *Stunning*

www.bbc.co.uk...

For the first time researchers have monitored the brain as it slips into unconsciousness. The new imaging method detects the waxing and waning of electrical activity in the brain moments after an anaesthetic injection is administered. As the patient goes under, different parts of the brain seem to be "talking" to each other, a team told the European Anaesthesiology Congress in Amsterdam.

"Our jaws just hit the ground," said anaesthesiologist Professor Brian Pollard from Manchester Royal Infirmary on seeing the images for the first time. "I can't tell you the words we used as it wouldn't be polite over the phone." Cross talk Although regions of the brain seem to be communicating as "consciousness fades", Professor Pollard cautions that it is early days and that he and his team from the University of Manchester still have many brain scans to analyse before they can say anything conclusive about what is happening.

Watch the video in the link to see it.

So much activity happens while we are asleep according to the studys!
This could be a break through of our understanding of the brain and how it works!

It is hoped that this technique could be used to learn about the nature of consciousness, but it is also likely to help doctors make headway in monitoring the health of a person's grey matter after they have suffered a head injury or stroke.

This would mean a wider understanding of the activity in the pre-fontal cortex since they call it grey matter.
Can be revolutionary if there is something suprising to be found within these series of experiments!

reply to post by foreshadower99


It confirms that humans use brain at just 10%

reply to post by foreshadower99


That is very cool - thank you for posting! I think science is making amazing leaps forward everyday in trying to understand what is thought of as being impossible to understand - the brain is, in my mind (pun intended), perhaps the most incredible machine ever! Go Brains!

CJ

reply to post by LaTouffe


Even less 5%, but to see we use so much while being unconsious shows there may be potential for us to use more than 50% if we can understand how to do so, if we can do it unconsious then it can also be done consiously why not?

Cool. I wonder if they asked the subject to recollect any thoughts during the time it was scanning.

Hey i like the post!!..im new to the site i think these flags are good so im gonna give you one aha

reply to post by satron


Probably did haha or he just tried to think something else instead of chicks!

reply to post by ColoradoJens


Your very much welcome I am also fond with the human physic as history has come to show us we are much more than what we are capable of today e.g. Egyptians building those pyramids.
Brains have more power than muscle!

Have you seen 'Total Recall' ?

That would be so sweeeeeeet.

I was surprised to see how active the brain remains after being unconscious. I mean, obviously it remains active. But I was expecting to see a dramatic reduction in activity. If anything, it almost seemed to increase.

Originally posted by LaTouffe
reply to post by foreshadower99

 

It confirms that humans use brain at just 10%

That's a misleading statistic. It's true that at any time only a fraction of neurons and neural pathways are actively firing, but that's because if they all went off at once (i.e. 100% of the brain is "used") you wouldn't be able to function. The thing that separates brain state A from brain state B (and thought A from thought B or action A from action B) is the firing pattern. You can't have different firing patterns if everything fires together.

Consider the LED signs in Time Square that tell stock prices or even one on a clock in someone's office. At any moment, only a fraction of the lights are on. This doesn't mean that the sign isn't realizing its full potential. On the contrary, it can represent much more information in a much more efficient way by only activating some of the lights and not others. This allows for detailed and meaningful patterns, as opposed to "all on" or "all off" which would restrict the transmition of information to something like Morse code or binary. Our brains are like that. Complexity and subtle differences are a function of patterns of activity, and we wouldn't benefit by having a single brain state in which all of our neurons were "on" at once.

reply to post by gimme_some_truth


Same here, I found it astounding to see so much brain activity while the patient was unconsious compared to when he was awake, it's like the brain is not 1 but many parts interacting at giving thought to each other. As you say increase instead of the expected decrease of activity.

reply to post by TechUnique

Nope I haven't seen it but now that you have mentioned Im might find some time to take a look at it, thanks for the recommendation. =)

Originally posted by OnceReturned

Originally posted by LaTouffe
reply to post by foreshadower99

 

It confirms that humans use brain at just 10%

That's a misleading statistic. It's true that at any time only a fraction of neurons and neural pathways are actively firing, but that's because if they all went off at once (i.e. 100% of the brain is "used") you wouldn't be able to function. The thing that separates brain state A from brain state B (and thought A from thought B or action A from action B) is the firing pattern. You can't have different firing patterns if everything fires together.

Consider the LED signs in Time Square that tell stock prices or even one on a clock in someone's office. At any moment, only a fraction of the lights are on. This doesn't mean that the sign isn't realizing its full potential. On the contrary, it can represent much more information in a much more efficient way by only activating some of the lights and not others. This allows for detailed and meaningful patterns, as opposed to "all on" or "all off" which would restrict the transmition of information to something like Morse code or binary. Our brains are like that. Complexity and subtle differences are a function of patterns of activity, and we wouldn't benefit by having a single brain state in which all of our neurons were "on" at once.

Hmmm, it could however increase our level of awarness, or as some would say gain psychic powers
But we carry on functioing even though we are unconsious with up to 60-70% brain activity which is A) amazing
B) could mean we can also be able use a higher amount of brain capacity whilst consious. How ever still a very interesting subject to all, we need to find more about before saying it's not possible.

I read a long time ago that the brain is at its most active during REM sleep.
Didn't really expect so much activity while its nodding off so to speak.
Its odd isn't it?That we feel as though we are getting calm and "winding down"as we drop off,yet our brain is busy talking to other parts of itself...
How strange,yet fascinating.
We have yet to scratch the surface of our amazing biological supercomputers IMO.
This thread proves that I think.

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


Basically word to word which Im trying to explain.
Our brains are like hyper computers which we are using only to play games on.
If we can use more of it to our benefit rather then messing about it would
be revolutionary to man kind.

reply to post by foreshadower99


I hear you.
We probably have the capacity to re grow limbs/cure disease and much more all locked up in our brains somewhere.
Imagine if we got full control of our DNA for example-able to turn on or off dormant sequences at will,we could hibernate like a squirrel if we got stuck up a mountain or trapped in an earthquake.
Not to mention the possibilities for ESP and maybe even telekinesis!
We have the processing power-we just haven't sussed out how to plug it in yet.
And we lost the manual many centuries ago.

What would REALLY be spectacular is if we could teach different parts of the brain to do things. For example, math is processed in one part of the brain responsible for rational thought. There was a guy who performed math in the part of his brain that was responsible for visual processing (causing him to "see" the math while he did it, and process it far faster).

But what if we could cause the portion of the brain responsible for abstract thought to begin to process math?

Insights that could be gained from people "trained" to move various mental functions into other brain areas could be staggering. It is likely the cause of the mental acuity of our ancestral greats like Pythagoras, Aristotle, Archimedes (wow, Archimedes was a thinker). Could you imagine the insights gained from a person who processed moral decisions in an abstract portion of the brain?

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


One cool thing about the brain is that it is actually developed by your consciousness as you grow.

So if part of it is missing or damaged, it actually changes and evolves to compensate.

reply to post by Jezus


That is part of why i think that "mind" is not "brain". That "brain" is more like an interface device, like a modem. I don't know where the "mind" is, but religion has several guesses.

Studying the results of individuals with radical hemispherectomies, one who graduated college, is stunning. Or the people who "see" with sonar.

It's a 'wise tale' that humans only use part of the brain at any time, we use our entire neurological functions at all times except when we are unconscious. This article had zero credibility. A silly 5-second animated gif, common, really? There is no magic, but if it makes you feel better then there is magic, so harness it then! and get a real job.

BTW this is far from the first time neurological functions have been recorded by a visual representation. This article is woo, pseudo science at best, laughable. It feeds only dreams and dreamers.