Under anesthesia, the brain learns and predicts upcoming words
TL;DR
Researchers recording brains of epilepsy patients under propofol anesthesia found that the hippocampus remains active, parsing spoken language and even predicting the next word during podcasts. The study shows unconscious semantic processing and learning, with neuron responses during anesthesia resembling those of awake individuals.
- Even the unconscious brain can learn — and predict what you’ll say next Nature
- Plasticity and language in the anaesthetized human hippocampus Nature
- The brain may still be able to hear speech under anesthesia Scientific American
- Brains have a mind of their own under general anaesthetic The Times
- While patients lay unconscious under anesthesia, their brains kept decoding stories and preparing for what came next Medical Xpress
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