anesthesia

A coma is mysterious–the person seems to be asleep, but is impossible to wake up. Wounded Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was put into an induced coma in order to help her brain heal. Anne Strieber experienced this when an aneurysm burst in her brain. Neurologists are trying to figure out how to help these patients by studying how anesthesia works, because the brain under general anesthesia isn’t "asleep" as surgery patients are often told–it is placed into a state that is a reversible coma.
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