S.O.T.T: What is going on inside the heads of individuals in a coma has been steeped in mystery. Now, a new study finds coma patients have dramatically reorganized brain networks, a finding that could shed light on the mystery of consciousness. Compared with healthy patients in the study, high-traffic hubs of brain activity are dark in coma patients while more quiet regions spring to life. "Consciousness may depend on the anatomical location of these hubs in the human brain network," said study co-author Sophie Achard, a statistician at the French National Center for Scientific research in Grenoble. The findings have several important implications, said Indiana University neuroscientist Olaf Sporns, who was not involved in the study.
"It gives us a handle on what may be different between healthy conscious people and people who have loss of consciousness," Sporns told LiveScience. "The traffic patterns have totally reorganized. And maybe it's the rerouting of the traffic patterns that underlies the loss of consciousness," or the mysterious ability to be self-aware that seems to set humans apart from other animals...read more>>>...