 Using a multiscale and multimodal approach in humans, Purdon and his team discovered that anesthetics produce prominent, highly structured neural oscillations that disrupt brain activity.This profound disruption of brain activity is thought to be a primary mechanism by which anesthetic drugs produce unconsciousness.The form of these oscillations correspond to the underlying molecular mechanisms of different anesthetic drugs, leading to the concept that different anesthetic drug classes have distinct “EEG signatures” that relate to their mechanisms of action.