New Theories on the Anesthetics Mechanism of Action
Irina Andra Tache
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Abstract
Anesthetic techniques using different substances with anesthetic properties have been used since antiquity. However, even today, it is not known exactly how these anesthetics work, if there is a common site or if their action is multi-level. In this article we present the latest theories regarding the mechanism of anesthetics' action. Thus we will refer to the action of anesthetics on neural networks, we will discuss the fractal theory of consciousness as well as the soliton model and the theory of the action of anesthetics on the cellular cytoskeleton.
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Anesthesia and Consciousness
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Biography Dr. Rocco J. Gennaro is the Philosophy Department Chairperson and a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Indiana. He received his Ph.D. in 1991 at Syracuse University. Dr. Gennaro’s primary research and teaching interests are in Philosophy of Mind/Cognitive Science (especially consciousness), Metaphysics, Early Modern History of Philosophy, NeuroEthics, and Applied Ethics. He has published ten books (as either sole author or editor) and over fifty articles and book chapters in these areas.
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Anesthesiology, 2018
Anesthetic gases block consciousness selectively, sparing nonconscious brain activities , and thus their specific action could unravel the age-old mystery of how the brain generates, or mediates, consciousness. In this issue, Li et al. 1 make a significant contribution to our understanding of both anesthesia and consciousness , showing that an isotope of the anesthetic xenon (129 Xe) with the quantum property of nuclear spin 1/2 is significantly less potent than xenon isotopes without spin, despite identical chemical actions. Li et al. suggest that the xenon nuclear spin antagonizes its own anesthetic action by promoting consciousness, and that consciousness involves quantum brain processes, thus supporting a genre of theories known as "quantum consciousness."
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