Credit: Jacob Dwyer, Michigan Medicine Millions of surgical procedures performed each year would not be possible without the aid of general anesthesia, the miraculous medical ability to turn off consciousness in a reversible and controllable way. Researchers are using this powerful tool to better understand how the brain reconstitutes consciousness and cognition after disruptions caused by sleep, medical procedures requiring anesthesia, and neurological dysfunctions such as coma. In a new study published in the journal eLife, a team led by anesthesiologists George Mashour, M.D., Ph.D. of University of Michigan Medical School, Michigan Medicine, Max Kelz, M.D., Ph.D. of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and Michael Avidan, MBBCh of the Washington University School of Medicine used the anesthetics propofol and isoflurane in humans to study the patterns of reemerging consciousness and cognitive function after anesthesia.