Regional anesthesia and pain medicine
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Nov 2009
Effects of dexmedetomidine pretreatment on bupivacaine cardiotoxicity in rats.
We evaluated the effects of dexmedetomidine pretreatment on bupivacaine cardiotoxicity in anesthetized rats. ⋯ Dexmedetomidine pretreatment delays the effects of bupivacaine cardiotoxicity.
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Reg Anesth Pain Med · Nov 2009
Pain: friend or foe? A Neurobiologic perspective: the 2008 Bonica Award Lecture.
Pain is a protective sensation, but it can also be a burden without any useful value. Pain as a friend warns of impending damage and protects the body from injury. Pain as a foe is a useless sensation that makes the underlying problem worse and becomes a disease in its own right. ⋯ However, in inflammatory and neuropathic conditions, these actions are reversed, leading to touch-evoked pain or tactile allodynia. The mechanism responsible for this reversal is a change in the synaptic actions of [gamma]-aminobutyric acid that switches from being an inhibitory neurotransmitter to an excitatory one. Our challenge was to devise methods for pain relief based on elimination of the useless aspects of pain and the restoration of the protective qualities of normal pain sensation.