Anaethesia

Inducing anaesthetic drugs leads to numbness and inactivates motor axons, which makes patients unable to move the body part spontaneously. But, according to a hypothesis published in Nature, it might be possible to induce anaesthesia without dysfunctioning other sensory systems.

Capsaicin, a pungent factor in chilli pepper, and QX-314, a local anaesthetic play a key role in the novel anaethesia. The idea of this is that when both capsaicin and QX-314 are applied, capsaicin first stimulates TRPV1, and then QX-314 which usually cannot permeate into a cell membrane is allowed to enter the cell through the activated TRPV1. The QX-314 inside the cell acts in the same way as other anaethestics do. QX-314 blocks sodium ion channels. This consequently anaethetises the nerve.


The point of this is that without passing through an activated TRPV1 channel, QX-314 cannot function as anaethesia. Most importantly, TRPV1 only exists in nociceptor (pain-sensing) neurons. That is why there is a great prospect of inventing a novel anaesthesia which lets patients move freely but feel no pain.


Binshtok, AM, et al 2007, “Inhibition f nociceptors by TRPV1-mediated entry of impermeant sodium channel blockers”, Nature,
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7162/full/nature06191.html.