Nature

An experiment

Why is it blight so far?

Like it sounds so simple.

They had no idea.

But now the data's...

I find this not only refreshing, but at some level astounding.

Nature.

Nature. Nature. Welcome back to the nature podcast. This week, what the unconscious brain might be taking in. I'm Benjamin Thompson. There's a question in neuroscience that has been tough to solve.

Namely, how much is consciousness required to make sense of the world around us?

Like, do we need to be alert and have all sections of our brain on deck to figure out

what's going on? There is evidence that when someone is not conscious, the brain still has some

ability to process information from a person surrounding. For example, the brain region that processes

sounds has been shown to activate when an unconscious

person hears something. But how much of that information is passed on and processed in other

parts of the brain related to cognition isn't as well understood. Ultimately, do people need to be

conscious to process and understand complex information?

This week, a team have tried to shed a little bit more light on this

by taking neuronal readings directly from people undergoing brain surgery.

These folk were, understandably, in anaesthetic-induced unconsciousness,

and the team took this opportunity to

see how their brains responded when hearing complex sounds. The team report their findings

...