PANS: The effect of anaesthetic on consciousness is conclusive! A century of scientific debate has come to an end.

Introduction: it is well known that the concentration of anesthetics meeting the requirements of clinical surgery will have a certain impact on the learning, memory, cognitive function and behavioral performance of the brain, but doctors and scientists still can not explain how anesthetics can temporarily make patients lose consciousness. Scientists in the United States have identified how anesthetics affect people's consciousness, according to a new study published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on May 28.surgery is unthinkable without general anesthesia. Therefore, despite 175 years of medical history, doctors and scientists still can't explain how anesthetics can temporarily make patients unconscious.on the evening of May 28, a new study by Scripps Research was published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAs), which solved this long-standing medical mystery.using modern nanotechnology and ingenious experiments on living cells and Drosophila, scientists have demonstrated how lipid clusters in cell membranes act as missing intermediate links in the two mechanisms.transient anesthesia can transfer lipid clusters from ordered state to disordered state, and then back and forth, resulting in a large number of follow-up effects, eventually leading to changes in consciousness.Dr. Richard Lerner, member of the National Academy of Sciences and former president of Scripps Institute, and molecular biologist Scott Hansen Dr. Hansen's discovery has solved a century of scientific debate, which is still in the making: whether anesthetics act directly on cell membrane doors called ion channels, or do they act on cell membranes in a new and unexpected way to signal cell changes? They said that after nearly five years of experiments, appeals, debates and challenges, they finally came to the conclusion that this is a two-step process starting from membrane.anesthetics disrupt the ordered lipid clusters in the membrane of cells called "lipid rafts", thus activating signals.Lerner said: "we think there is no doubt that this new approach is being used for other brain functions other than consciousness, enabling us now to further decipher the other mysteries of the brain.”。in 1846, the ability of ethylether to cause loss of consciousness was first demonstrated in a tumor patient at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital. At that time, the effect of ether was so obvious in a surgical operating room later called "ether dome". By 1899, German pharmacologist Hans Horst Meyer, and in 1901, British biologist Charles erness Charles Ernest Overton wisely concluded that lipid solubility determines the effectiveness of this anesthetic.Hansen recalled that he had turned to Google search when he drafted a funding application to further investigate this historic issue, believing that he could not be the only one convinced of the role of membrane lipid rafts.to Hansen's delight, Lerner's PNAs paper in 1997 made a hypothesis about endogenous analogues of general anesthesia. Anesthesia has such an important practical significance that I can't believe that we don't know how all these anesthetics cause people to lose consciousness. According to Hansen, many other scientists have found the same answer through a century of experiments, but they lack several key elements: first, the microscope can see biological complexes smaller than the diffraction limit of light; second, recent insights into the properties of cell membranes; and the complex tissues and functions of the various lipid complexes that make up them.Hansen said: "they've been looking for a lot of lipids and haven't seen lipid signals, largely because of a lack of technology.”。a postdoctoral researcher at Hansen's laboratory used the microscope technology of Nobel Prize winners, especially a microscope called dstorm (direct random optical reconstruction microscope). Hansen explained that soaking cells in chloroform greatly increased the diameter and area of lipid cluster GM1 on cell membrane.Hansen said that what he saw was the transformation of GM1 cluster organization, from crowding to chaos.when it becomes disordered, GM1 spills its contents, including an enzyme called phospholipase D2 (PLD2). inhalation anesthetics can destroy the appearance structure of GM1 domain. labeling PLD2 with fluorescent chemicals, Hansen was able to observe PLD2 moving from GM1's home to another less popular lipid cluster PIP2 through dstorm microscope. this activates key molecules in the PIP2 cluster, including Trek1 potassium channel and its lipid activator phospholipid acid (PA). Hansen said that activation of Trek1 basically froze the activation of neurons, leading to loss of consciousness. Trek1 potassium channel releases potassium ion, which makes the nerve hyperpolarized, more difficult to emit and can only be closed. ”。 the activation of TREK-1 by inhalational anesthetics depends on PLD2. Lerner insists that they have verified this finding in living animal models. the common Drosophila melanogaster provides these data. deletion of PLD expression in Drosophila made them resistant to sedation. in fact, they need twice the amount of anesthetic to show the same response. they wrote: "all flies eventually lose consciousness, suggesting that PLD helps to set a threshold, but is not the only way to control anesthesia sensitivity. ”。 says Lerner, "people are going to start looking at everything you can imagine: sleep, consciousness, all those related disorders. "ether is a gift to help us understand the problem of consciousness. it lights up a pathway that has not yet been recognized, and the brain has apparently evolved to control higher-order functions. "reference: [1] [2] recommended reading: fighting the epidemic situation, translational medicine network content team series report: [science sub journal] breast cancer is saved! Targeted therapy works! [new findings] intestinal microbiota disorder can lead to brain damage? Some studies have the truth [new discovery] a mysterious protein has been found in patients with advanced breast cancer, which is expected to treat breast cancer. The first evidence of genetic influence on cancer metastasis