Consciousness vs. Unconsciousness in Decision Making and Movement

            The battle between unconscious versus conscious actions and decisions is an ongoing feud that needs to be further explored and understood. With an increase interest in the subject, researchers begin to explore the actual behaviour of the brain when making conscious and unconscious decisions, trying to determine whether the two ways of decision-making are connected. In Daniel Bor’s book, The Ravenous Brain – How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning, he elaborates on the previous works of Benjamin Libet. Libet constructed an experiment in the early 1980’s that demonstrated that a person’s brain acts on a movement before the person themselves consciously decides to convey the action. This suggested that our unconscious mind is the ultimate decider of our actions and we believe ‘that we are in control because our brains are designed to make us think like this’ (Bor page 103). This was highly opposed in those days, and a lot of other researchers and poked holes in Libet’s experiment. However, in much more recent studies, with the usage of fMRI technology, John-Dylan Haynes and his colleagues modified Libet’s experiment and showed that the brain acts up to a whole 10 seconds before a person consciously decides to make a movement (in this study, the movement was initiating finger movement). This reinforces the idea that ‘our conscious decisions are fixed in our unconscious minds’ (Bor 105). Nevertheless, this is still far from being proven, and requires a lot more research in order for us to understand ourselves better.

            Stemming from this unconscious versus conscious duality of our being, the issue of state of mind during surgery and other medical processes plagues the healthcare field. During what state of mind is it acceptable to operate on a person? In the article, Awake or Knocked Out? The Line Gets Blurrier, by James Gorman, the effects of anesthetic drugs on the brain and consciousness were explored. Gorman refers to Dr. Sheinin and Dr. Langsjo study in which two drugs, propofol and dexmedetomidine were given to subjects to make them unconscious; a state in which ‘a subject or patient does not respond to commands’ (Gorman). The doctors explained that the neocortex is the part of the brain responsible for consciousness, and without its activity, we are unconscious. The doctors found that when subjects were given a command, they would act the command (refuting the definition of unconsciousness), and then drift back into unconsciousness. But the most interesting part is that the neocortex was not active, only the brainstem, thalamus, and part of the cortex were active. With this said, does this not mean that we are aware during unconsciousness? If so, are people undergoing surgery just as aware as conscious humans? Gorman highlights a specific case at the Cambridge University of England, where a patient was reported to be in a vegetative state, yet ‘showing signs of conscious activity in her brain when asked to imagine playing tennis and other movement’. From this, the question of whether or not a person in a vegetative state is aware arises. From there, a cascade of ethical and moral dilemmas regarding euthanasia surface.

            Again, these questions need to be further investigated in order for us to understand our brain a little better. As research methods advance with technology, we will be able to expand on these studies.

Bor, D. (2012). The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning. New York: Basic Books.

Gorman, James. (2012, April 12). Awake or Knocked Out? The Line Gets Blurrier, Article. The New York Times. Retrieved October 17, 2014.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/17/science/studying-states-of-consciousness.html?_r=0