James R. Hupp, DMD, MD, JD (Editor-in-Chief)
The ability to pharmacologically sedate, or even render somebody unconscious, and then have them recover continues to be an amazing phenomenon. We still do not fully understand how drugs are able to achieve these forms of anesthesia, yet we as surgeons commonly depend on them to allow us to perform complex surgery. It has been presumed by many that the effects of sedating drugs and those that can produce general anesthesia on the brain are entirely reversible. Patients appear to awake without obvious neurologic deficits.