Anesthesia and Consciousness

A recent MIT study investigated how general anesthesia obstructs conscious thought essentially by blocking communication between brain regions. The researchers defend that anesthesia can throw off gamma wave frequencies, the “refresh rate of the brain”, thereby disrupting neuronal organization and conscious thought. The study thus stresses the importance of communication across the cortex, particularly the “role for prefrontal cortex activation”, for conscious activity. 

Schizophrenia is often associated with common cognitive deficits, such as lower IQ, which were hitherto thought to result from the same inheritable origins. A recent study suggests otherwise, though, as the cognitive deficiencies were found to be independent genetic mutations that are non-familial. These mutations were found to affect the chances of an individual developing Schizophrenia, however, potentially leading to a spectrum of disorders.

A recent CSAIL study showed that AI could not recognize faces in objects, also known as pareidolia. The researchers curated a dataset of 5,000 images and found that AI needed to be trained on animal faces before it could recognize faces on objects. Even when it did, it was found that there is a Goldilocks zone wherein the images are just complex enough for both humans and AI to recognize faces. These results may reveal how we detect faces and the evolutionary history behind it.