Giving Compass' Take:

• Futurity reports of a new study in which researchers found that to knock you out, different anesthesia drugs hijack the neural circuitry that makes you fall sleep. The study also revealed a previously unexpected role of the brain’s hormone-secreting cells in promoting deep sleep.

• How can this report be properly used to create effective and better drugs for patients? 

• Read about this no-electricity anesthesia machine saving lives around the world.

The discovery of general anesthesia 170 years ago was a medical miracle, enabling millions of patients to undergo invasive, life-saving surgeries without pain.

For the study, which appears in Neuron, researchers traced this neural circuitry to a tiny cluster of cells at the base of the brain responsible for churning out hormones to regulate bodily functions, mood, and sleep.

The finding is one of the first to suggest a role for hormones in maintaining the state of general anesthesia, and provides valuable insights for generating newer drugs that could put people to sleep with fewer side effects.

Ever since the first patient went under general anesthesia in 1846, scientists have tried to figure out exactly how it works. The prevailing theory was that many of these drugs tamp down the brain’s normal activities, resulting in the inability to move or feel pain.

Read the full article about general anesthesia by Marla Broadfoot at Futurity.