Anesthesia is a type of medicine used to prevent pain during surgery and other medical procedures. The four types of anesthesia all act differently, ranging from making patients unconscious and unable to move to numbing just small areas of the skin.
Anesthesia prevents pain by stopping nerves from passing signals to the brain. Inhibitory neurotransmitters, for example, are released in response to some anesthetics and reduce the responsiveness of surrounding nerves.
Issue of Pathways student magazine focused on anesthesia (grades 6-12).
An interactive that explores different regions of the brain when someone is conscious, asleep, or unconscious.
