Lifting the fog around anesthesia

General anesthetics are powerful nervous system suppressors, but how the drugs produce their broad effects throughout the brain and body is poorly understood. Investigation of anesthetics underlying mechanisms is revealing that individual aspects of anesthetized state are attributable to different sets of nerve cells, which are themselves distinguished by specific surface proteins that interact the drugs. New compounds designed to target just those proteins, and hence only a specific cell types, could be combined to selectively produce the desirable effects of anesthetics; as well as sedatives, sleep aids and memory drugs with fewer risks and side effects.