Jad Abumrad

All right, all right, all right.

You aren't going to regret it.

Well, anyway, the larger point is that if you can't understand how and why anesthesia works, then you're not going to be able to explain why every so often it just doesn't work.

Really?

How often is every so often?

I've heard different numbers, anywhere between 1 in 10,000 to much more often, like 1 in 1,000.

Wow.

In the last few decades, scientists have begun to shine a little pin light into this black box.

And Patrick and his team in particular have found something pretty cool.

This experiment that we did in the, I guess, late 2000s.

A couple years ago, they wanted to know what happens in the brain right when that switch flips.

So they got a bunch of volunteers.

They hooked them up to an IV and started to very, very slowly give them propofol, which is a big anesthetic.

And as they did, they told the subjects to click a button every time they heard a sound or a word that they recognized.

In addition, we had the subject's name, too.

Tim.

Patrick.

So the subjects would just sit there and listen and click.

On and on.

And every 15 minutes, they gave them a little bit more propofol.