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How To Anesthetize an Octopus
sciencehabit writes Researchers have figured out how to anesthetize octopuses so the animals do not feel pain while being transported and handled during scientific experiments. In a study published online this month in the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health, researchers report immersing 10 specimens of the common octopus in seawater with isoflurane, an anesthetic used in humans. They gradually increased the concentration of the substance from 0.5% to 2%. The investigators found that the animals lost the ability to respond to touch and their color paled, which means that their normal motor coordination of color regulation by the brain was lost, concluding that the animals were indeed anesthetized. The octopuses then recovered from the anesthesia within 40 to 60 minutes of being immersed in fresh seawater without the anesthetic, as they were able to respond to touch again and their color was back to normal.
My brother in law is an anesthesiologist. Until I met him, I never realized how dangerous anesthesia is. You are basically turning over your life and your breathing/heart to one person's knowledge of drugs and how your body responds to them. Too much, and your heart or lungs stop working... too little, and you wake up and can feel and remember what's going on. The comforting stat is that only about 1 in 200,000 cases actually die, but just 25 years ago, it was 2 in 10,000.
For a field whose motto is "do no harm," I can see why they didn't want to do very much experimentation at all with anesthesia on babies -- the line between wake and death gets even smaller. And when you think about it, less than 150 years ago, ALL surgery was done without anesthetic..
This reminds me of the cases where they used Curare for anesthesia. Turns out all it was doing was paralyzing the motor systems so the still fully conscious patients couldn't scream or otherwise react as the surgeons operated.
Might be a good idea to ask the octopuses afterwards if they remember from during the anesthetized time period. This can be done and would find out if they're really out cold or if they're just locked in.
I remember a little interview (in the New Scientist I think) with a marine biologist who said he stopped experimenting on octopi when, after inserting a probe into the head of an octopus he thought was anaesthetised, the octopus calmly raised its tentacle and pulled the probe back out.
I am an anesthesiologist who takes care of adults primarily. I did about 9 months of pediatric anesthesia in my 36 month residency after medical school. The pediatric anesthesiologist I trained under were spectacular and caring clinicians. I think you might be generalizing in your post. Until the late 1980s, doctors did not anesthetize boys routinely for *circumcision*. For other operations, infants and children were anesthetized similarly to adults. Studies came out around that time (late 1980s, IIRC) on the levels of circulating stress hormones like cortisol during circumcisions that proved the infants were responding physiologically exactly like older children and adults feeling pain. That was the end of the 'babies don't feel pain' hypothesis, which no one subscribes to any more. Remember that anesthesiologists are parents too. A lot has changed in medicine and anesthesia in 30 years. Undergoing anesthesia can be as scary as needing surgery in the first place, so I wanted to say anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists study a long time (and are tested repeatedly!) to make sure we know how to get patients through surgery without feeling pain in the OR. If you or your child needs surgery, talk to the anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist!
I have been hunting and eating octopi in greece (plural?)
greeces. You're welcome.
Octopus are basically water going aliens that crash landed on earth, they have separate brains for each eyeball and almost as many neurons in the tentacles as the brain, plus their motor cortex is doughnut-shaped and encircles their throat. Yet they're smart enough to unscrew the lid of a peanut butter jar if they're trapped inside one, and more often than not can pick the winner in a soccer match. The fact that we have any idea of how to do anything with something as weird as an octopus is pretty damn impressive. This is hard core nerd biology/medicine, cutting edge right here.
Look, just be glad they didn't post pictures of ktitens, ok?
moox. for a new generation.