Plants respond to anesthetics in the same way as animals and humans. This suggests that plants would be good models for testing anesthetics.
Anesthetics were first used in the XIXe century when it was discovered that inhaling ether prevented patients from feeling pain during surgery. Since then, many chemicals have been found to induce anesthesia. However, even though different anesthetics have been used over a 150-year period, little is known about how these compounds, without structural similarity, behave. This is one of the reasons that motivated the launch of a new study, published in Annals of Botany, concerning the problem of anesthetics.
Plants as a remedy
The main conclusion of this research leads us to plants. This is because anesthetics work the same way on plants. The researchers found that when exposed to anesthetics, a number of plants lost their autonomic and touch-induced movements. As proof, Venus fly traps no longer generate electrical signals and they stay open when the trigger hairs have been touched.
These results suggest that the action of the anesthetic on cells and organs is similar in plants and animals. Thus, plants appear to be models for studying general questions related to anesthesia. They could also serve as an alternative test system suitable for human anesthesia.
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