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 ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

High-frequency jet ventilation seems safe for lung ablation

For percutaneous lung ablation, high-frequency jet ventilation (HFJV) under general anesthesia seems as safe as spontaneous respiration (SR) under moderate sedation, with longer room time for HFJV, according to a study published ...

Surgery

Women more resistant to anesthetic than men, finds study

Sex hormones may contribute to increased anesthetic resistance in women compared with men, according to a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. General anesthetics exert their hypnotic effects ...

Neuroscience

Brain stimulation decreases involuntary shaking, researcher finds

Neurosurgical treatment with deep brain stimulation in a relatively new target area has been shown to relieve involuntary tremors in Parkinson's disease and Essential Tremor for up to at least five and 10 years after treatment ...

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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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