Apical Function in Neocortical Pyramidal Cells: A Common Pathway by Which General Anesthetics Can Affect Mental State.
Frontiers in neural circuits January 1, 2018 William A Phillips, Talis Bachmann, Johan F Storm
General anesthetics may suppress either the level of consciousness (arousal) or its contents (specific percepts, thoughts, feelings). This distinction is important for understanding both anesthesia and the neural bases of consciousness. Evidence indicates that both level and content depend on apical input to neocortical pyramidal cells, which selectively amplifies relevant signals. What these cells transmit information about can be separated from arousal levels controlled by sub-cortical nuclei and from prioritization set by thalamocortical interactions. The authors hypothesize that when conscious, we have particular directly experienced mental states, and that anesthetics disrupt the subcellular processes that selectively amplify contextually relevant activities.