Most of the surgical procedures today are not complete without anesthesia. Whether it's an organ transplant or just a tooth extraction, pain relief is a necessary part of any surgery.
Anesthesia was first used in 1846. For a long time, doctors used ether for pain relief - a very effective, but equally unsafe remedy. Now in the arsenal of the anesthesiologist there are many compounds and drugs that reduce the sensitivity of both the whole body (general anesthesia) and a separate part of it (local anesthesia).
The substances used differ in composition and properties, but they perform the same functions. However, the "mode of operation" and the features of the action of anesthetics remain not fully understood.
An international team of scientists decided to conduct an unusual experiment to find out what effect anesthesia has on plants. As noted in a press release from the American Council on Health and Science, the main goal of this work is to find out whether plants can be used as model organisms for experiments.
Plants are known to respond in principle to anesthetics. More than a hundred years ago, French physician, founder of endocrinology Claude Bernard demonstrated that bashful mimosa (Mimosa pudica) reacts to diethyl ether. In ordinary life, this plant, as shown below, "folds" the leaves when touched (hence its name).
However, the anesthetic "turns off" this reaction: the mimosa leaves seem to lose sensitivity. So Bernard and his colleagues came to the conclusion that anesthetics disrupt some natural processes, and this is true not only for animals, but also for plants.
In the new work, the authors used a wider sample of plants (all tests were carried out by the experimental group, which was treated with the anesthetic, and the control group).
Promotional video:
The researchers started with the same bashful mimosa. The plant was treated with vapors of 15% diethyl ether. The leaves lost any response to sensory stimuli and did not respond to them even one hour after treatment.
Then the experts conducted a similar experiment with the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), a predatory plant known for its slamming traps. On the surface of the flycatcher's leaves, there are thin hairs that are highly sensitive and respond to the slightest mechanical impact.
However, after treatment with ether, the flycatcher lost this property: multiple irritations of the hairs and leaves of the plant did not cause any reaction. True, the sensitivity was restored within 15 minutes after the removal of ether vapors.
Another carnivorous plant, the Cape sundew (Drosera capensis), captures prey with sticky hairs on the leaf surface. They catch the insect, after which the edges of the leaf are closed. But under the influence of ether, the plant lost its ability to bend leaves and "tentacles".
The same results were shown by experiments with sowing peas (Pisum sativum), watercress (Lepidium sativum), and Rezukovid Tal (Arabidopsis thaliana).
But the most curious thing is that the "pain-free" plants have lost not only their sensitivity to touch. They also changed some of their vital processes.
The results of the work, published in the Annals of Botany, indicate that plants have slowed down action potentials - the electrical impulses that neurons use to communicate. In fact, action potentials are excitation waves moving across the membrane of a living cell. They occur when ions with different charges cross the neuron membrane.
In plants (as well as in humans and animals), action potentials are slowed down by anesthesia. This means that plants can serve as a model organism for studying the actions of various anesthetics, the authors conclude.