Adv Exp Med Biol
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Review
Glial proinflammatory cytokines mediate exaggerated pain states: implications for clinical pain.
When you hurt yourself, you become consciously aware of the pain because a chain of neurons carries the pain message from the injury to the spinal cord, and then from the spinal cord up to consciousness in the brain. However, it has been known for more than two decades that neural circuits within the spinal cord can cause your conscious experience of pain to be amplified-that is, the pain you perceive is out of proportion to the injury that caused it. Until now, all research aimed at understanding how pain amplification occurs in the spinal cord and all drug therapies aimed at curing exaggerated pain have focused exclusively on neurons. ⋯ Indeed, when glia become activated, they begin releasing a variety of chemical substances that causes the pain message to become amplified, thus causing pain to hurt more. This review discusses evidence that glia cause pain to become amplified and describes how the glia cause this to happen. The take-home message is that drugs that target glia and the chemical substances that these glia release are predicted to be powerful remedies for pain problems in people.
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Review Historical Article
Awareness 1960 - 2002, explicit recall of events during general anaesthesia.
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Biography Historical Article
Fire-air and dephlogistication. Revisionisms of oxygen's discovery.
Americans are taught that Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774 and promptly brought that news to Lavoisier. Lavoisier proved that air contained a new element, oxygen, which combined with hydrogen to make water. He disproved the phlogiston theory but Priestley called it dephlogisticated air until his death 30 years later. ⋯ In the new time-lapse play "Oxygen" set in Stockholm in both 18th and 21st centuries, in 1774, blame falls on Lavoisier's wife who hid Scheele's letter in hopes of giving her husband sole credit for discovering oxygen. In 2001, four Nobel committee panelists cannot agree which should receive the first "Retro-Nobel Prize" for the greatest discovery of all time: Priestley, Scheele or Lavoisier or all three. The audience is asked to choose.