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Read articles, including Science News stories written for ages 9-14, on the
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- Better chow yields more milk: A more nutritious form of corn for dairy cows boosts farm profits, teen investigator finds
- Fuzzy future: Kids may suffer impaired vision from spending too little time outdoors, studies suggest
- Building with moon rocks: Working on the moon with lunar soil and grit could prove easier, more efficient and less costly than using earthly materials
FOR KIDS: No ordinary zzz’s
Anesthetics can put you in a coma — but that’s a good thing
Web edition: June 8, 2012
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To study the effects of anesthesia, scientists study pictures of the brain, like these, that track brain activity.
It turns out that the dreamlike state that patients experience during surgery isn’t really sleep — at least not the kind you do every night. Patients going into surgery are given a mixture of medicines called general anesthetics to keep them from feeling any pain. The medicines numb the entire body, including the brain. One of medicine’s greatest mysteries is how the drugs work together in the brain to create a pain-free state.
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