Anaesthetics and plants: from sensory systems to cognition-based adaptive behaviour

Abstract

Plants are not only sensitive to exogenous anaesthetics, but they also produce multitudes of endogenous substances, especially when stressed, that often have anaesthetic and anelgesic properties when applied to both humans and animals. Moreover, plants rely on neurotransmitters and their receptors for cell-cell communication and integration in a similar fashion to the use of neural systems in animals and humans. Plants also use their plant-specific sensory systems and neurotransmitter-based communication, including long-distance action potentials, to manage stress via cognition-like plant-specific behaviour and adaptation.

Consciousness and cognition in plants

“…Similarly, Trewavas (2007) argued that neurobiology concepts are "an essential adjunct to the imaginative scientific mind in confronting some of the most recalcitrant problems in plant biology" (p. 232). Far from settled, these disputes remain alive as of today (see Baluška & Yokawa, 2021;Calvo et al, 2020;Calvo & Trewavas, 2020a, 2020bMallatt et al, 2020;Baluška & Reber, 2021;Robinson et al, 2020;Taiz et al, 2019Taiz et al, , 2020.…”

“…The current working hypothesis is that anesthesia could affect plants in a similar way as it affects animals: by acting upon the action-potential-inducing glutamate and GABA, thus inhibiting the production of electrical signals. Even though the underlying mechanisms that explain how anesthetics disrupt plants behavior and responsiveness remain to be elucidated, Baluška and Yokawa (2021) suggest that since "[a]nesthesia in humans induces a loss of awareness" this "could also be hypothesized to occur for plants" (Baluška and Yokawa, 2021, p. 2; see also Mediano et al, 2021). It is possible that anesthetics not only disrupt plant behavior, but plant sentience or awareness altogether.…”

“…For those who believe that plants are cognitive, the subsequent debate pertains whether plants can also be sentient or conscious, where consciousness is marked by the presence of phenomenal experience of some sort (see Baluška & Yokawa, 2021;Calvo, 2017;Mediano et al, 2021;Raja & Segundo-Ortin, 2021). Understood in such minimal terms, consciousness or sentience denotes the occurrence of "feelings, subjective states, a primitive awareness of events, including awareness of internal states" (Baluška & Reber, 2019, p. 2).…”

CBC‐Clock Theory of Life – Integration of cellular circadian clocks and cellular sentience is essential for cognitive basis of life

“…what is alive must sense and can be anaesthetized, the rest is dead." [97,98] Importantly, general anesthesia in Drosophila was reported to be related to electron spin [101,102] and xenon isotopes with nuclear spin are less potent in their anesthetic actions as than those without nuclear spin. [103] Moreover, xenon-based anesthesia includes also electron transfers involving the radical pair electrons.…”

“…[ 98–100 ] In words of Claude Bernard "… what is alive must sense and can be anaesthetized, the rest is dead." [ 97,98 ]…”