About Emery
Dr. Emery Brown is a highly distinguished anesthesiologist, statistician, and computational neuroscientist focused on unraveling the scientific mysteries of general anesthesia and its connection to consciousness. He is an active anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and holds dual professorships at both MIT and Harvard Medical School. Emery’s breakthrough research has shown that general anesthesia is not like natural sleep, but rather a carefully controlled, drug-induced reversible coma. He and his team use powerful statistical and engineering methods to analyze brain waves (EEG), proving that anesthetics create unique, large-scale electrical oscillations that disrupt communication between different brain regions, which is what causes unconsciousness. This work has profound implications: by using real-time EEG monitoring, doctors can give patients a much more precise dose of anesthetic drugs, leading to faster, clearer recovery and fewer side effects. Emery’s findings also open doors for new ways to treat conditions like chronic pain and depression by using anesthetic agents to better understand and safely reset brain circuits. His achievements have earned him the National Medal of Science in 2024, the nation’s highest scientific honor. He is the first African American elected to all three National Academies (Science, Engineering, and Medicine). When he’s not teaching or in the operating room, Emery still challenges his mind by studying and speaking several Romance languages.
