الفهرس 
Physiology of painOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Continuous epidural infusion of analgesics is considered as routine practice in a wide variety of surgical procedures. Combination of drugs with epidural local anesthetics usually improves the block, increases its duration and decreases the amount of local anesthetics and hence, decreases its side effects. Ropivacaine is a new local anesthetic available as 0.2% solution for epidural analgesia. Epidural ropivacaine appears to produce less motor block than equal dose of bupivacaine . Yet, the use of ropivacaine alone for postoperative epidural analgesia still appears to be unsatisfactory because of the motor block when administered in doses sufficient for analgesia.Preliminary results from a dose response study of adding fentanyl to ropivacaine for postoperative epidural analgesia indicate that addition of 4 ugm /ml fentanyl improve the quality and efficacy of analgesia from 0.2% ropivacaine.It was found that gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors and benzodiazepine receptors play a role in postoperative analgesia using epidural drugs. Benzodiazepines receptors are present throughout the nervous system including spinal cord and appear to be linked with GABA receptors .