Study Reveals Effects of Inhaled Anesthesia on the Brains of Children

Children’s brains are more affected by an inhaled anesthetic than an intravenous anesthetic with increased levels of brain lactate, which increases brain activation and may lead to metabolic changes associated with anxiety and delirium — that’s according to Stony Brook University School of Medicine researchers. Their findings appear in the November issue of Anesthesiology and offer new clues to metabolic changes within the brains of children undergoing anesthesia. Said discoveries could help researchers understand why general anesthesia may be potentially harmful to the developing brain.

In the study “Metabolomic Profiling of Children’s Brains Undergoing General Anesthesia with Sevoflurane and Propofol,” 59 children ages two to seven years old were given one of two routinely used anesthetics for an MRI procedure: sevoflurane (inhaled) and propofol (intravenous). The parietal cortex of the children’s brains was imaged one hour after being administered anesthesia. For more information, click here to read the full release.