ArticleAnnals of botany2018
Anaesthetics stop diverse plant organ movements, affect endocytic vesicle recycling and ROS homeostasis, and block action potentials in Venus flytraps.
Article in Annals of botany, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers.
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Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 98 citations in OpenAlex.
- Diethyl ether anesthesia inhibits phototropic response inPlant signaling & behavior · 2026Article
- Local anesthetic lidocaine decelerates cytoplasmic streaming inPlant signaling & behavior · 2026Article
- Synchronized Chromatin Reorganization as a Key Biomarker in Anesthetic Effects on Plants.Chemical & biomedical imaging · 2026Article
- Growth Inhibition and Allelopathy Enhancement ofPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Mind Everywhere: A Framework for Conceptualizing Goal-Directedness in Biology and Other Domains-Part Two.Biological theory · 2026Article
- A litmus test for plant consciousness: Pattern-Temporal Synergy in a relation-first ontology.Communicative & integrative biology · 2025Article
- Seed germination: influence of non-traditional regulating factors.Communicative & integrative biology · 2025Review
- Toxic and signaling effects of the anaesthetic lidocaine on rice cultured cells.Plant signaling & behavior · 2024Article
- Mechanosensing and anesthesia of single internodal cells ofPlant signaling & behavior · 2024Article
- Touch, light, wounding: how anaesthetics affect plant sensing abilities.Plant cell reports · 2024Review
- Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substrates.Communications biology · 2024Review
- Effect of the General Anaesthetic Ketamine on Electrical and CaPlants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Is There a Role for Sound in Plants?Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
- Benchmarking organic electrochemical transistors for plant electrophysiology.Frontiers in plant science · 2022Article
- Diethyl ether anesthesia induces transient cytosolic [CaFrontiers in plant science · 2022Article
- Signaling and transport processes related to the carnivorous lifestyle of plants living on nutrient-poor soil.Plant physiology · 2021Review
- Broadening the definition of a nervous system to better understand the evolution of plants and animals.Plant signaling & behavior · 2021Review
- Individuality, self and sociality of vascular plants.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Review
- Anaesthetics and plants: from sensory systems to cognition-based adaptive behaviour.Protoplasma · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background and Aims: Anaesthesia for medical purposes was introduced in the 19th century. However, the physiological mode of anaesthetic drug actions on the nervous system remains unclear. One of the remaining questions is how these different compounds, with no structural similarities and even chemically inert elements such as the noble gas xenon, act as anaesthetic agents inducing loss of consciousness. The main goal here was to determine if anaesthetics affect the same or similar processes in plants as in animals and humans. Methods: A single-lens reflex camera was used to follow organ movements in plants before, during and after recovery from exposure to diverse anaesthetics. Confocal microscopy was used to analyse endocytic vesicle trafficking. Electrical signals were recorded using a surface AgCl electrode. Key Results: Mimosa leaves, pea tendrils, Venus flytraps and sundew traps all lost both their autonomous and touch-induced movements after exposure to anaesthetics. In Venus flytrap, this was shown to be due to the loss of action potentials under diethyl ether anaesthesia. The same concentration of diethyl ether immobilized pea tendrils. Anaesthetics also impeded seed germination and chlorophyll accumulation in cress seedlings. Endocytic vesicle recycling and reactive oxygen species (ROS) balance, as observed in intact Arabidopsis root apex cells, were also affected by all anaesthetics tested. Conclusions: Plants are sensitive to several anaesthetics that have no structural similarities. As in animals and humans, anaesthetics used at appropriate concentrations block action potentials and immobilize organs via effects on action potentials, endocytic vesicle recycling and ROS homeostasis. Plants emerge as ideal model objects to study general questions related to anaesthesia, as well as to serve as a suitable test system for human anaesthesia.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.