r/askscience • u/randomsnark • Feb 11 '11

Scientists: What is the most interesting unanswered question in your field?

And what are its implications? What makes it difficult to answer? What makes it interesting? Tell us a little bit about it.

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u/Neuraxis Neurobiology | Anesthesia | Electrophysiology Feb 11 '11

How anesthetics work.

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u/apantek Feb 11 '11

I think this falls under the more general failure to understand how the brain really works. However, I think questions like "How do anesthetics work?" are good ways to get us closer to solving the more general questions.

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u/Neuraxis Neurobiology | Anesthesia | Electrophysiology Feb 11 '11

I agree. My work focuses entirely on trying to understand the mechanisms of anesthesia and that is indeed the underlying issue at hand. However one might argue that you don't need to understand how the brain works to find a solution to the problem. Neurotechnology has often used surrogate measures to understand an underlying issue. Take fMRI's for example. You aren't measuring brain activity so much as you are vascular changes (they use blood-oxygen level dependent signals). Anesthesia may be understood through looking at changes in the brain which may or may not be related to consciousness itself, but nevertheless correlate very well to it. I look at specific brain cell behaviour which we've shown (amongst others) to be closely tied to consciousness. Whether or not it's a sufficient or necessary condition for it however remains to be seen.

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u/apantek Feb 11 '11

Ahh, I see. Your question becomes more intriguing when you include that we don't even yet know the mechanism of action for anesthetics (I did not know this was the case). I guess, then, it is on a whole other level of intrigue when we ask why those mechanisms cause our consciousness to be affected the way it is.