Baluška František, Yokawa Ken, Mancuso Stefano, Baverstock Keith
IZMB, University of Bonn , Kirschalle, Bonn, Germany.
Department of Plant, Soil and Environmental Science & LINV, University of Florence , Sesto Fiorentino, Italy.
Commun Integr Biol. 2016 Nov 4;9(6):e1238118. doi: 10.1080/19420889.2016.1238118. eCollection 2016.
Anesthesia and consciousness represent 2 mysteries not only for biology but also for physics and philosophy. Although anesthesia was introduced to medicine more than 160 y ago, our understanding of how it works still remains a mystery. The most prevalent view is that the human brain and its neurons are necessary to impose the effects of anesthetics. However, the fact is that all life can be anesthesized. Numerous theories have been generated trying to explain the major impact of anesthetics on our human-specific consciousness; switching it off so rapidly, but no single theory resolves this enduring mystery. The speed of anesthetic actions precludes any direct involvement of genes. Lipid bilayers, cellular membranes, and critical proteins emerge as the most probable primary targets of anesthetics. Recent findings suggest, rather surprisingly, that physical forces underlie both the anesthetic actions on living organisms as well as on consciousness in general.
麻醉和意识不仅是生物学的两大谜团，也是物理学和哲学的谜团。尽管麻醉在160多年前就已引入医学，但我们对其作用原理的理解仍然是个谜。最普遍的观点是，人类大脑及其神经元是产生麻醉效果的必要条件。然而，事实是所有生命都可以被麻醉。人们提出了许多理论来解释麻醉剂对人类特定意识的主要影响；能如此迅速地使其消失，但没有一个理论能解开这个长久的谜团。麻醉作用的速度排除了基因的任何直接参与。脂质双分子层、细胞膜和关键蛋白质成为麻醉剂最可能的主要靶点。最近的研究结果相当令人惊讶地表明，物理力是麻醉剂对生物体以及一般意识产生作用的基础。
