Nerve Study Illuminates Anesthesia Mechanism

When patients are taken in for major surgery they are put to sleep with the aid of anesthetic drugs. However, until recently how exactly anesthesia works has not been a major concern to doctors. All doctors knew is that anesthesia put the patient to sleep and allowed them to complete the procedure. New research has shown, however, that anesthetics affect the brain at the physiological level by disrupting communication between brain cells. It has been shown that the neurons in the reticular activating system (RAS) in rats are electrically coupled and communicate through gap junctions. Researchers say that this may play an important role in the control of sleep-wake cycles. Understanding this could help scientists create more finely tuned anesthetic agents. Dr. Edgar Garcia-Rull says that some, though maybe not all, anisthetics disrupt the RAS and put people to sleep by blocking gap junctions. In the study Dr. Garcia and lead author David S. Heister are testing the levels of expression of connexin 36, a neuronal gap junction protein to see how anesthetics affect it. This study, which still has gaps, does show promise in the comprehension of how anesthetics affect the brain and put a pateint to sleep and how the sleep-wake cycle is regulated in others.

Neurological proscesses though somewhat understood are still the subject of debate and tons of interesting research. The brain is a very interesting part of the body which still holds many secrets that are left to be uncovered. Breakthroughs in understanding of how anesthetics affect communication in the brain could lead to not only better use of anesthetics, but possibly a way to have the reverse effect that an anesthetic has. Could it be possible to use the concept of anesthesia in the "reverse" direction to help communication in the trauma damaged brains of comatose and PVS patients.

http://www.anesthesiologynews.com/index.asp?section_id=21&show=dept&issue_id=328&article_id=8895