Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

An anesthetic that puts a person to sleep rendering them unconscious.

An anesthetic injected into the epidural space surrounding the fluid-filled sac (the dura) around the spinal cord. It partially numbs the abdomen and legs and is most commonly used during childbirth.

A substance that causes lack of feeling or awareness, dulling pain to permit surgery and other painful procedures.

The branch of medicine specializing in the use of drugs or other agents that cause insensibility to pain.

A physician or, less often, a dentist who is specialized in the practice of anesthesiology.

Anesthesia produced by injection of a local anesthetic into the caudal canal, the sacral portion of the spinal canal. Caudal anesthesia is used to provide anesthesia and analgesia (pain relief) below the umbilicus. It may be the sole anesthetic or combined with general anesthesia. Also known as caudal epidural anesthesia or a caudal block.

The situation that occurs when a patient under general anesthesia becomes aware of some or all events during surgery or a procedure, and has direct recall of those events. Because of the routine use of neuromuscular blocking agents (also called paralytics) during general anesthesia, the patient is often unable to communicate with the surgical team…

Loss of feeling or awareness, as when an anesthetic is administered before surgery.

A state of immune unresponsiveness. Induced when the T cell’s antigen receptor is stimulated, effectively freezing T cell responses pending a “second signal” from the antigen-presenting cell. The delivery of the second signal by the antigen-presenting cell rescues the activated T cell from anergy, allowing it to produce the lymphokines necessary for the growth of…

Anencephaly is a neural tube defect (NTD) that occurs when the cephalic (head) end of the neural tube fails to close, usually between the 23rd and 26th days of pregnancy, resulting in the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp. Infants with this disorder are born without a forebrain, the largest part of the…