The mind-numbing medicine
Discovery
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The Effects of Doses of Anaesthesia on Brain Activity
Irene is a professor of anaesthetic neuroscience at Oxford University. She runs a little torture lab, and she stabbed an electrocuted and burnt Adam with chilies. We spoke to Irene about an exciting experiment that she did to explore how patterns of brain activity change as doses of anaesthetic increase. As it went up, everybody mounted these slow waves. And then suddenly, one person would reach a limit, and they wouldn't make any more. Even though the dose of anaesthetic kept on going up, that was it for them. But when they reached their own individualized maximum level of slow waves, we realized the brain had gone into what I call perceptual unawareness. It was
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