Once again, AUA sponsored a science-focused, well-attended symposium at the IARS annual meeting. This year’s symposium “Anesthesia and Consciousness”, which was presented in Montreal on May 18, 2019, brought together an outstanding panel of experts to discuss how investigations of the anesthetized state inform our understanding of the nature and substance of consciousness. Audience members were treated to reviews of the cortical correlates of consciousness and of sensory awareness, learned about the neurobiology of arousal, and were introduced to the use of network motifs to assess awareness in disorders of consciousness.

The morning session on May 16 was moderated by SAB Chair Ines Koerner, MD, PhD, Oregon Health & Science University and Richard Levy, MD, FAAP, Columbia University and featured two presentations.

The nervous system connects to virtually every cell in the body, and regulates remote organ function via rapid and fine-tuned circuits. The vagus nerve, a major component of the bidirectional communication between the brain and peripheral organs, is one of the best-studied circuits for central/peripheral neuro/immune interactions.

The mitochondrion is a dynamic organelle that maintains cellular homeostasis by generating high-energy phosphates, buffering intracellular calcium, and modulating oxidative stress. However, mitochondria are also capable of mediating programmed cell death and necrosis. Central to many of these regulatory functions is the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (mPTP). Mounting evidence suggests that permeability transition (opening of the pore) within mitochondria plays a pathological role in a variety of cardiac disease processes and neurodegenerative states while physiological regulation of the mPTP has recently been shown to be important for cellular development and differentiation.

The 65^th AUA Annual Meeting was recently held in Chicago, IL. For the third year, we celebrated the successful alignment of the AUA and the IARS in furthering the science of anesthesiology and perioperative medicine by holding a joint AUA-IARS symposium. This year, the topic was “Mitochondria and Bioenergetics in Health and Disease: It’s Not Just a Power Failure”.

Opioid tolerance (OT) and opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH) are commonly associated with opioid therapy to treat acute, chronic, and cancer pain. Opioid overdose and deaths are directly related to the development of OT, which is a physiological response to repeated exposure to opioids and requires escalating dose to achieve the desired analgesic effects. In contrast to analgesic tolerance, tolerance to the side effects of opioid therapy such as respiratory depression and constipation does not readily develop.