Medical research

Dancing cells show how the brain awakens from anesthesia

According to a Mayo Clinic study published in Nature Neuroscience, the cells that act as the central nervous system's first line of defense against harm also play a role in helping the brain awaken from anesthesia. This discovery ...

Anesthesia

Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (see spelling differences; from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἲσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"), has traditionally meant the condition of having sensation (including the feeling of pain) blocked or temporarily taken away. This allows patients to undergo surgery and other procedures without the distress and pain they would otherwise experience. The word was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in 1846. Another definition is a "reversible lack of awareness", whether this is a total lack of awareness (e.g. a general anaesthetic) or a lack of awareness of a part of the body such as a spinal anaesthetic or another nerve block would cause. Anesthesia is a pharmacologically induced reversible state of amnesia, analgesia, loss of consciousness, loss of skeletal muscle reflexes and decreased stress response.

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