This study aimed at getting an improved understanding of how anesthetic drugs impair consciousness.
Abstract:
This project uses the gift of anesthesia to help us understand the neural correlates of consciousness. Each year, over 60 million patients receive general anesthesia to facilitate surgery and other medical procedures. Anesthetic drugs act at a variety of molecular targets. Different anesthetic drugs seem to produce unconsciousness in different ways, and unconsciousness under any one drug is not a simple on-off switch, but one that has dose-dependent gradations. In this project, we are studying network-level brain dynamics under different anesthetic drugs including propofol and ketamine, in order to understand the many ways in which these drugs disrupt brain activity and consciousness.
Figure 1. Broadband modulation of brain activity by slow oscillations occurs first over posterior cortical regions, extending to frontal cortical regions at higher propofol doses. This implies that anesthetics can disrupt sensory processing distinct from awareness of sensory content at different anesthetic doses. (Stephen, et al., Sci Rep 2020, 2020; 10(1):13701.doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-68756-y)
Broader Impact:
This project will lead to improved medical care of patients who receive general anesthesia for surgery and intensive care. The results will lead directly to an improved understanding of how anesthetic drugs impair consciousness, which in turn will make it possible to monitor anesthesia and deliver it more precisely. Doing so could significantly improve patient outcomes related to delirium, post-operative cognitive dysfunction, post-operative pain management, opioid dependence, and awareness under anesthesia.
