14/08/2026
Hoy nace uno de los mentores más apreciados del Dr. Carlos Novo, ER John, un matemático muy neuro. Este es el resumen de una platica sobre las bases neurofisiológicas del estado de conciencia en pacientes anestesiados, que dió hace casi más de 17 años en Monterrey. Fue su último evento internacional antes de morir 10 meses después; por lo que realizamos un evento en octubre del 2009 (año en que murió el 28 de febrero) para honrarlo; la imagen es de dicho evento.
Abstract:
A physiological theory of consciousness has been proposed which is derived from data collected during development of a QEEG instrument for the quantification of the level of conscious awareness during induction, maintenance and emergence from surgical anesthesia with a wide variety of agents. Such studies revealed invariant reversible QEEG changes during the loss and return of consciousness which contributed to better understanding of the neurophysiology of anesthetic action. These changes constituted quantifiable departure from and return to the established normative data of the eyes closed EEG, for the chronological age corresponding to that of the patient. In conjunction with existing knowledge of the neurophysiological generation of the EEG and current neurobiological research findings, this enabled development of a model of the neuroanatomical and neurochemical structure of the homeostatic system regulating the frequency composition and other features known to be descriptive of the resting EEG of healthy normally functioning persons independent of their ethnic or cultural background.
It was then postulated that this system not only dynamically stabilizes the steady state of the brain electrical activity, but that consciousness is somehow produced by and depends upon this electrical brain state. The normative QEEG descriptors were considered to define the Ground State of the healthy resting human brain.
Initially, this postulate was supported only by the essentially experimental observations during anesthesia and the observations by others as well as ourselves of QEEG abnormalities relative to normative data consistently found in patients with a wide diversity of altered mental states and their responses to treatment. Successful return of the QEEG to the Ground State has achieved by this approach in two patients in coma after prolonged hypoxia, considered clinically to be permanently vegetative. This theory and the supporting evidence will be presented in a companion symposium at this meeting.