It works, but intermittently. I suspect issues at Science Direct.
Abstract, just in case:
Abstract The neural mechanisms that underlie consciousness are not fully understood. We describe a region in the human brain where electrical stimulation reproducibly disrupted consciousness. A 54-year-old woman with intractable epilepsy underwent depth electrode implantation and electrical stimulation mapping. The electrode whose stimulation disrupted consciousness was between the left claustrum and anterior-dorsal insula. Stimulation of electrodes within 5 mm did not affect consciousness. We studied the interdependencies among depth recording signals as a function of time by nonlinear regression analysis (h2 coefficient) during stimulations that altered consciousness and stimulations of the same electrode at lower current intensities that were asymptomatic. Stimulation of the claustral electrode reproducibly resulted in a complete arrest of volitional behavior, unresponsiveness, and amnesia without negative motor symptoms or mere aphasia. The disruption of consciousness did not outlast the stimulation and occurred without any epileptiform discharges. We found a significant increase in correlation for interactions affecting medial parietal and posterior frontal channels during stimulations that disrupted consciousness compared with those that did not. Our findings suggest that the left claustrum/anterior insula is an important part of a network that subserves consciousness and that disruption of consciousness is related to increased EEG signal synchrony within frontal–parietal networks.
The paper itself is paywalled, if someone feels like posting full text some place accessible, by all means.
This paper, or more often the New Scientist's exposition of it is being discussed online and is rather topical here. In a nutshell, stimulating one small but central area of the brain reversibly rendered one epilepsia patient unconscious without disrupting wakefulness. Impressively, this phenomenon has apparently been hypothesized before, just never tested (because it's hard and usually unethical). A quote from the New Scientist article (emphasis mine):
One electrode was positioned next to the claustrum, an area that had never been stimulated before.
When the team zapped the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness. She stopped reading and stared blankly into space, she didn't respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness with no memory of the event. The same thing happened every time the area was stimulated during two days of experiments (Epilepsy and Behavior, doi.org/tgn).
To confirm that they were affecting the woman's consciousness rather than just her ability to speak or move, the team asked her to repeat the word "house" or snap her fingers before the stimulation began. If the stimulation was disrupting a brain region responsible for movement or language she would have stopped moving or talking almost immediately. Instead, she gradually spoke more quietly or moved less and less until she drifted into unconsciousness. Since there was no sign of epileptic brain activity during or after the stimulation, the team is sure that it wasn't a side effect of a seizure.
If confirmed, this hints at several interesting points. For example, a complex enough brain is not sufficient for consciousness, a sort-of command and control structure is required, as well, even if relatively small. A low-consciousness state of late-stage dementia sufferers might be due to the damage specifically to the claustrum area, not just the overall brain deterioration. The researchers speculates that stimulating the area in vegetative-state patients might help "push them out of this state". From an AI research perspective, understanding the difference between wakefulness and consciousness might be interesting, too.