So it was there all along!

Here is the article, So it's in the Thread for ppl.

Neuroscientists close in on the brain signature for consciousness

Despite an extraordinary array of scientific discoveries advancing our understanding of the human body, we still know remarkably little about the brain in general, and the nature of consciousness in particular. Setting aside centuries of philosophizing over what actually defines a conscious mind, neuroscientists are only now grappling with how our brains generate conscious awareness.

The goal of this new research was to try to identify a variety of neural signatures that can effectively indicate the presence of consciousness. This could, for example, allow doctors to differentiate conscious and unconscious patients suffering from brain injuries in cases where individuals are unable to communicate.

The research involved over 150 subjects, who were studied using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Some subjects scanned were patients in diagnosed vegetative states, while others were healthy individuals. The researchers ultimately discovered four specific neural activity patterns that could distinguish a person's place on a spectrum from conscious to unconscious.

The most complex pattern identified dynamic communication across 42 different brain regions. This highly active pattern of long-distance, brain-wide coordination was primarily seen in healthy, awake and aware subjects. At the other end of the spectrum, the fourth, and least complex pattern reflected fewer long-distance connections in the brain. This pattern was often seen in completely vegetative patients.


Interestingly, the research revealed many subjects fluctuated between different neural patterns. For example, some subjects in vegetative states did indicate brief flashes of more complex neural activity, similar to the most active pattern. This implies that some vegetative, and seemingly unconscious patients may enter brief states of consciousness. This active conscious pattern was primarily activated in vegetative patients after they were asked to mentally picture an image or activity.

Subjects were also scanned while sedated with the general anesthetic propofol. In that completely sedated state any complex neural patterning disappeared, with both healthy and vegetative subjects displaying the least active neural pattern.

"Importantly, this complex pattern disappeared when patients were under deep anesthesia, confirming that our methods were indeed sensitive to the patients' level of consciousness and not their general brain damage or external responsiveness," writes Davinia Fernández-Espejo, one of the authors on the study.

The most immediate outcome from this research is the promise of offering doctors, and families, a better way to understand whether a completely non-responsive patient is still capable of conscious thought. Another promising prospect arising from this research is the suggestion that consciousness could be artificially altered using methods that force the brain into generating different neural signatures.

"In the future, it might be possible to develop ways to externally modulate these conscious signatures and restore some degree of awareness or responsiveness in patients who have lost them, for example by using non-invasive brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial electrical stimulation," suggests Fernández-Espejo.


My Thoughts.

This is a subject of particular interest to me, But from this article, All I'm gleaming is Via Fmri we have discovered four distinctive brain signature patterns. from Alert and awake to a vegetative state. While I admit, This could be a door to learning more about how the consciousness functions "especially across the different wave states, alpha, Beta Gamma, Delta, and theta. All these signatures tell us is while conscious which parts of the brain are interacting and how. This is ultimate And I hate to say this, A high-resolution understanding of patterns we already knew, It ultimately brings us, Only slightly closer to understanding what consciousness truly is, What this is My good sir, Is a cleverly Written and Engaging article that doesn't tell untruths, While everything written in the article is true, The Sense of Hype and that sense that we have broken barriers of understanding and truly progressed the scientific study are vastly overstated here for the sake of someone wanting to write an outstanding article. Of which they did. It's a great article and not untrue. It's just Mostly A hype Fluff article so this guy could get a bunch of views.

I can't blame the guy, If you know how to, And aren't lying, Why not excite people to pull in traffic. Right?

Still, once digested, This article reveals that we are literally no closer to understanding consciousness than before really.
But, This is a discovery none the less, And it will be important in neuroscience without a doubt. Ultimately this tells us what parts of the brain are active while conscious and this gives us some clue of what parts of the brain to stimulate in coma patients to help them wake.

Which is yeah. That's important too. But, I want to know how Consciousness works, Where does it come from? how can we create it?

It is extrreemly good to know they are making advances in this knowledge. Perhaps they will also be able to answer these questions someday as well:

Is consciousness limited to the brain, or does it permeate the entire nervous system?

Is consciousness limited to the nervous system or does it permeate into the organ tissues.