Abstract
The spontaneous bursts of brain waves which alternate with periods of apparent complete suppression of cerebral electrical activity ("blackouts") during deep sodium amytal narcosis can originate in either cerebral cortex or either thalamus and be propagated by neuronal pathways throughout both cerebral hemispheres within a few milliseconds. The propagation interhemispherically is by way of the corpus callosum and intrahemispherically by way of the internal capsule and the lateral part of the thalamus.