Patrick Purdon on RadioLab

A recent episode of RadioLab looks at three different kinds of black boxes—"those peculiar spaces where it’s clear what’s going in, we know what’s coming out, but what happens in-between is a mystery." For the first segment, which explores questions of consciousness during the induction of anesthesia, the hosts spoke with Patrick Purdon, Martinos Center researcher and Assistant Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School. Patrick gives a tour of the famous Ether Dome at MGH and, later, discusses research he and colleague Emery Brown have conducted on electrical activity in the brain during anesthesia.

Listen to the episode here.