Drug-induced coma: anesthesia

There’s a reason why the medical world are serious about putting you under general anesthetic before a surgery.

In a Reuters article, according to Dr Nicholas Schiff of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, it is more like a coma than a deep sleep. Despite this, doctors still refer to it as ‘putting you to sleep’.

Apparently, when you’re in a coma your brain operates on a specific phase dampening your neurons, whereas during sleep your brain goes through several phases.  During general anesthesia, your brain operates on the same specific phase as it it would in a coma.

Posted on Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 at 14:50. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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