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The Journal of Neuroscience, February 1, 2003, 23(3):876
Early Exposure to Common Anesthetic Agents Causes Widespread
Neurodegeneration in the Developing Rat Brain and Persistent Learning
Deficits
Vesna
Jevtovic-Todorovic1,
Richard E.
Hartman2,
Yukitoshi
Izumi3,
Nicholas
D.
Benshoff3,
Krikor
Dikranian3,
Charles F.
Zorumski3,
John W.
Olney3, and
David F.
Wozniak3
1 Department of Anesthesiology, University of Virginia
Health System, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908, and Departments of
2 Neurology and 3 Psychiatry, Washington
University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110
Recently it was demonstrated that exposure of the developing brain
during the period of synaptogenesis to drugs that block NMDA glutamate
receptors or drugs that potentiate GABAA receptors can
trigger widespread apoptotic neurodegeneration. All currently used
general anesthetic agents have either NMDA receptor-blocking or
GABAA receptor-enhancing properties. To induce or maintain a surgical plane of anesthesia, it is common practice in pediatric or
obstetrical medicine to use agents from these two classes in combination. Therefore, the question arises whether this practice entails significant risk of inducing apoptotic neurodegeneration in the
developing human brain. To begin to address this problem, we have
administered to 7-d-old infant rats a combination of drugs commonly
used in pediatric anesthesia (midazolam, nitrous oxide, and isoflurane)
in doses sufficient to maintain a surgical plane of anesthesia for 6 hr, and have observed that this causes widespread apoptotic
neurodegeneration in the developing brain, deficits in hippocampal
synaptic function, and persistent memory/learning impairments.
Key words:
NMDA antagonists; GABA agonists; isoflurane; midazolam; nitrous oxide; apoptosis
Copyright © 2003 Society for Neuroscience 0270-6474/03/233876-07$05.00/0
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