The 28-year-old man, who has been paralysed for more than a decade after a spinal-cord injury, had electrodes from the prosthetic hand inserted into his sensory and motor cortexes. This allowed him to both control the hand with thought and sense when the fingers of the hand were touched individually.
Dinitrogen monoxide is its IUPAC name and its common name is laughing gas. Its chemical name is nitrous oxide itself.
The organic nitrates, including nitroglycerin, isosorbide dinitrate and isosorbide mononitrate, act as prodrugs for nitric oxide (NO) which is a potent vasodilator gas. Nitric oxide activates guanylyl-cyclase in vascular endothelial cells, which increases intracellular cyclic GMP and thereby reduces intracellular calcium concentrates and dephosphorylates myosin light chains causing relaxation of smooth muscle cells.