Despite their importance, the mechanism of action of general anesthetics is still poorly understood. Facilitation of inhibitory GABA(A) receptors plays an important role in anesthesia, but other targets have also been linked to anesthetic actions. Anesthetics are known to suppress excitatory synaptic transmission, but it has been difficult to determine whether they act on the neurotransmitter r...

General anesthetics, with sevoflurane (SF) being the first choice inhalational anesthetic agent, provide reversible, broad depressor effects on the nervous system yet have a narrow margin of safety. As characterization of low-affinity binding interactions of volatile substances is exceptionally challenging with the existing methods, none of the numerous cellular targets proposed as chief protag...

C-halothane direct photoaffinity labeling was used to characterize the distribution of halothane binding in rat brain to test the hypothesis that anesthetics bind preferentially to a specific, heterogeneously distributed, receptor or channel. Slidemounted sagittal rat brain sections were placed in gas-tight quartz cuvettes with 100 mM C-halothane in phosphate buffered saline with 0 to 7.5 mM un...

General anesthetics cause sedation, hypnosis, and immobilization via CNS mechanisms that remain incompletely understood; contributions of particular anesthetic targets in specific neural pathways remain largely unexplored. Among potential molecular targets for mediating anesthetic actions, members of the TASK subgroup [TASK-1 (K2P3.1) and TASK-3 (K2P9.1)] of background K(+) channels are appeali...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Hepatic injury after inhalational anesthesia is controversial. Studies have suggested that inhalational agents generate an immune response that can provoke hepatic injury. The objective of this study was to analyze the effects of the inhalational agents halothane and sevoflurane on the liver of rats submitted to hypoxia and reperfusion. METHODS Thirty Wistar rats, pr...

C-halothane direct photoaffinity labeling was used to characterize the distribution of halothane binding in rat brain to test the hypothesis that anesthetics bind preferentially to a specific, heterogeneously distributed, receptor or channel. Slidemounted sagittal rat brain sections were placed in gas-tight quartz cuvettes with 100 mM C-halothane in phosphate buffered saline with 0 to 7.5 mM un...

Anesthetic agents are used in surgical operations to reversibly reduce consciousness and pain. Sevoflurane is an inhalational anesthetic. Propofol is a short‑acting intravenous general anesthetic. The mechanism of anesthetic agents at pathway level on individual patients has not been reported to date. In the present study, pathway aberrance in the human atrial tissue in response to anesthetics ...

TASK two-pore-domain leak K(+) channels occur throughout the brain. However, TASK-1 and TASK-3 knockout (KO) mice have few neurological impairments and only mildly reduced sensitivities to inhalational anesthetics, contrasting with the anticipated functions and importance of these channels. TASK-1/-3 channel expression can compensate for the absence of GABA(A) receptors in GABA(A) alpha6 KO mic...

On October 4, 2001, CDC and state and local public health authorities reported a case of inhalational anthrax in Florida. Additional cases of anthrax subsequently have been reported from Florida and New York City. This report updates the findings of these case investigations, which indicate that infections were caused by the intentional release of Bacillus anthracis. This report also includes i...

BACKGROUND Doses of volatile anesthetics around 0.3 minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) inhibit learning. However, threshold amnesic doses and relative potencies between agents are not well established. The authors determined amnesic potency in rats for four common volatiles and nitrous oxide. METHODS After institutional review board approval, adult Sprague-Dawley rats received inhibitory av...