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 Last week’s discussions about action potentials, signals, and connections got me thinking about consciousness again. In my web paper, I mentioned research that showed signs of consciousness in patients who were said to be in vegetative states. What I didn’t go into detail about, and what I am questioning now, is how this consciousness is lost and then regained. Consciousness, as we’ve talked about in class, comes from neuronal connections and signals from action potentials. So how is this consciousness lost? Do action potentials cease? If they do, is it a matter of an inability to reach the threshold (since action potentials are “all-or-nothing” events)? Or is it more complicated; for instance, are connections broken, and if so how? If this is the case, can these connections be rebuilt, thus restoring some semblance of consciousness? This seems like a much more difficult task since we are born with some connections and create more throughout our lives as we learn and receive new information. Rebuilding a certain, specific set of connections almost seems impossible. And how do the action potentials make these connections? I know I have a lot of questions and I guess what I am most curious about is the method by which some small amount of consciousness is returned to people who seem to have lost it all.

On a somewhat different note, my conversations with Emily have led me to wonder how these signals from action potentials are transformed into the thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. that we experience daily. These animations are so variable, within an individual and across a population, that there must be a thousand ways these neurons can be connected to generate such a diverse range.