Cell Reports. ADVERTISEMENT “Information processing in the brain has two dimensions: sensory processing of the environment without awareness and the type that occurs when a stimulus reaches a certain level of importance and enters conscious awareness,” explains Zirui Huang, Ph.D., research investigator in the Department of Anesthesiology.Huang, along with lead researcher Anthony Hudetz, Ph.D.
and colleagues, aimed to verify the location of this ‘gateway’ in the brain. They determined that this switch occurs in the brain region called the anterior insular cortex.
It acts as a filter of conscious awareness between low-level sensory information and higher awareness. ADVERTISEMENT Researchers gave participants the anesthetic drug propofol for the study, which caused loss of consciousness.
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