dmf in one of his usual cryptic messages to me dropped a link to a site, Radiolab where there is a recording of Patrick Purdon, and his protégé, colleague Emery Brown, Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School, who tries to answer this question: “What happens in that invisible moment when the patient goes under anesthesia?  And why is it that some patients remain conscious, even when they appear to be knocked out?”  In an experiment that takes the induction of anesthesia and slows it down to a crawl while analyzing the brain’s electrical activity they discover something interesting about how the brain works as the connections that once gave it consciousness suddenly are sutured, cut off.

Listening to the recording is like listening to an old time radio program with comic relief, strange sounds, and quirky effects interspersed with endless conversation: something like the brain itself, maybe. Definitely worth listening to this…