According to a review published in the NEJM, patients undergoing general anesthesia before surgery are not "going to sleep" as their doctors probably told them, they are placed in a “reversible coma".
Three US neuroscientists took 3 years to research studies in general anestheisa, sleep and coma to understand how anesthetic drugs induce and maintain the behavioral states of general anesthesia. They discussed the clinical and neurophysiological features of general anesthesia and their relationships to sleep and coma, focusing on the neural mechanisms of unconsciousness induced by selected anesthetic drugs.
They conclude that better understanding of the the different states of the process would lead to new approaches to general anesthesia and improved diagnosis and treatment for sleep problems and emergence from coma.
Source: "General Anesthesia, Sleep, and Coma". New England J of Medicine 2010; 363:2638-2650 ( f/t via Athens)
No comments:
Post a Comment