Plants have been known to act like humans, especially when it comes to the ability of being able to sense and react.
Scientists have now discovered they also react to general anesthesia, the same drug that puts patients to sleep before undergoing surgery, making them fall asleep in minutes.
Venus Flytraps Fall Asleep In Minutes
The idea behind the study was to see if plants would react to anesthesia in similar way animals and humans do.
Scientists soaked the roots of Venus flytraps with anesthesia and found they became unresponsive, even when a bug was crawling across its spiky maw.
Researchers used a single-lens reflex camera, which would follow the plant's organ movements closely before getting anesthesia, during and after recovery from exposure to various anesthetics.
Similar to humans, the researchers found that as soon as the effects of anesthesia subside, the Venus flytraps regained consciousness.
In addition, the researchers tested other plants such as Mimosa leaves, also known as a shy plant, pea tendrils, and sundew plants. Just like Venus flytraps, all plants reacted in the same way, which was becoming unresponsive and not reacting when they were touched.
Venus flytraps have always captivated the attention of researchers around the world, mostly because of how much it doesn't actually act like a plant. As soon as an insect or spider crawls near the leaves and touches a hair, their trap acts like jaws and eats its prey.
Venus flytraps and plants, in general, have been known to have their own challenges, like how humans experience happiness and pain.
"They're living organisms which have their own problems, maybe something like with humans feeling pain or joy. In order to navigate this complex life, they must have some compass," said Frantisek Baluska, a plant cell biologist from the University of Bonn, which isolated in Germany.
Once the anesthesia wore off, the plants returned back to life and acted as if they were regaining consciousness, similar to what happens after fainting.
