Electron spin changes as a general mechanism for general anesthesia?
Monday, August 11, 2014 - 14:00
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org) —How does consciousness work? Few questions if any could be more profound. One thing we do know about it, jokes biophysicist Luca Turin, is that it is soluble in chloroform. When you put the brain into chloroform, the lipids that form nerve cell membranes and the myelin that insulates them will dissolve. On the other hand, when you put chloroform into the brain, by inhaling it, consciousness dissolves. It is hard to imagine a satisfying explanation of consciousness that does not also account for how anesthetics like chloroform can abolish it.