Biological effects of noble gases

Abstract

Noble gases are known for their inertness. They do not react chemically with any element at normal temperature and pressure. Through that, some of them are known to be biologically active by their sedative, hypnotic and analgesic properties. Common inhalation anesthetics are characterized by some disadvantages (toxicity, decreased cardiac output, etc). Inhalation of xenon introduces anesthesia and has none of the above disadvantages, hence xenon seems to be the anesthetic gas of the future (with just one disadvantage - its cost). It is known that argon has similar anesthetic properties (under hyperbaric conditions), which is much cheaper and easily accessible. The question is if this could be used in clinical practice, in anesthesia of patients who undergo treatment in the hyperbaric chamber. Xenon was found to be organ-protective. Recent animal experiments indicated that xenon decreases infarction size after ischemic attack on brain or heart. The goal of our study is to check if hyperbaric argon has properties similar to those of xenon.