Though humans have been using anesthetic drugs for more than 160 years, physicians do not understand exactly how these drugs produce anesthetic states.
Many general anesthetics work to cause unconsciousness in part by recruiting the brain’s natural sleep circuitry, which initiates sleep, said Max Kelz, MD, an anesthesiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, where studies took place.
Dr. Kelz and other researchers focused on an area of the brain which becomes more active when a person sleeps. Their experiment with mice and isoflurane found boosted activity in this area.
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