Scientists have proposed a new way to study consciousness

A new instrument for studying the brain based on focused ultrasound may allow scientists to directly affect the hidden neural circuits underlying consciousness. This was reported on February 4 by Science Daily magazine.

Consciousness has long been considered one of the most difficult mysteries of science. It is still unclear how the physical brain tissue generates thoughts, emotions, and subjective experiences. A relatively new technology, transcranial focused ultrasound, may give researchers the opportunity to study this process more directly.

Although the technology has been around for several years, it has not yet become a standard neuroscience tool. Now two researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are preparing new experiments using it and have published a scientific paper that serves as a detailed roadmap for using the method to study consciousness.

"Transcranial focused ultrasound will stimulate different parts of the brain in healthy people in ways that were previously unavailable. It is a tool that is useful not only for medicine or even basic science, but also for solving the complex problem of consciousness. It can explore where in the brain are the neural circuits that generate the sensation of pain, the sensation of vision, or even something as complex as human thinking," said Daniel Freeman, an MIT researcher and co-author of the paper.

Unlike other methods of brain stimulation, this technology does not require surgical intervention and allows for highly accurate effects on the deep structures of the brain, surpassing transcranial magnetic and electrical stimulation. According to university philosopher Matthias Michel, there are few reliable ways to safely and effectively manage brain activity.

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According to the publication, the study of the human brain is complicated by the fact that scientists cannot conduct invasive experiments on healthy people. Imaging techniques such as MRI or EEG basically only allow you to observe activity, but not influence it.

Focused ultrasound works differently: it directs acoustic waves through the skull and concentrates them at a strictly defined point, which allows you to control the activity of specific areas of the brain. According to Freeman, this is the first method in history that allows high spatial accuracy to modulate the activity of deep brain structures without surgery.

The key advantage of the new technology is the ability to study cause-and-effect relationships. Most studies of consciousness record only correlations between brain activity and subjective experience. Active intervention allows us to determine which neural processes are really necessary for the emergence of conscious sensations.

Scientists propose using ultrasound to study the role of the prefrontal cortex in perception, the importance of local and network brain activity, the mechanisms of combining information into a single experience, as well as the contribution of subcortical structures to awareness. Special attention is paid to pain and vision as the basic elements of consciousness. For example, a person may pull their hand away from a hot object before realizing the pain, which raises the question of exactly where the pain sensation is formed.

Researchers are already planning experiments, starting with stimulation of the visual cortex and moving on to more complex areas of the frontal lobes. Their goal is to link the activity of neurons not just with electrical signals, but with a person's real subjective experience. According to Michel, focused ultrasound opens up a promising area of research.

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