A human intracranial map of consciousness returning from anesthesia
bioRxiv Preprint Server June 17, 2026 Xinyu Chen, Haoru Zhang, Xinran Deng et al. preprint
Consciousness re-emerges from propofol-induced general anesthesia through a multiscale reorganization of brain activity, not a single event. Anesthesia is an organized low-frequency regime with aperiodic slow waves, alpha/beta rhythms, global alpha synchronization, and phase-amplitude coupling. After anesthetic cessation, this regime dissolves as neural excitability and complexity increase. Conscious behavior returns with a rapid transformation in high-gamma activity, shifting from random bursts to structured, task-selective, event-locked responses. The findings chart an electrophysiological map of how conscious cognition is extinguished, reconfigured, and restored in the human brain.