BarcelonaOct. 18 (Benin News) –
Researchers at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona have identified in a study when the patient’s brain stops feeling pain during anesthesia, which areas of the brain respond to pain during deep sedation and how the increase of the dose of analgesic makes them stop reacting.
The British Journal of Anesthesia has published the results of this work which is the second part of a study published in 2021 in which the same team of researchers determined the exact moment of loss of consciousness during anesthesia, said the hospital in a statement Tuesday.
Twenty-six healthy people took part in the study: they were subjected to controlled deep sedation that simulated that practiced in different procedures, while being exposed to a painful stimulus – the pressure of a fingernail – and the the whole process was followed by magnetic resonance imaging.
They were given a dose of propofol, an anesthetic sufficient to keep them unconscious while the tests were being carried out, and at the same time they were given a very potent derivative of morphine, commonly used in anesthesia, the strength of which was gradually increased. dose.
They thus checked which areas of the brain were activated by the pain stimulus and when they were no longer activated because of the drug.
At low doses, the areas of the brain that represent the area where the stimulus was applied and the areas that trigger the individual’s awakening were activated, while at the medium dose, only the latter were activated and, at high dose, the brain stopped perceiving pain.
For the authors, these results represent “an important step” in the development of tools to monitor the condition of patients and to more carefully adjust anesthetic and analgesic drugs.