Excerpt from: Eurekalert (click for full article)
Several studies have found evidence that children who undergo repeated surgical operations with general anesthesia before the age of 4 may be at an increased risk for learning disabilities. In the March issue of Anesthesiology, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers report an animal study indicating that several factors – age, the specific anesthetic agent used and the number of doses – combine to induce impairments in learning and memory accompanied by the inflammation of brain tissue. An accompanying paper from the same team finds that the offspring of mice that received a specific anesthetic gas during pregnancy also showed the effects of neuroinflammation and impaired learning. Both articles have been released online.
"We found that different anesthetic drugs – sevoflurane but not desflurane – had different effects on neuroinflammation and on learning and memory function in young mice," says Zhongcong Xie, MD, PhD, corresponding author of both studies and director of the Geriatric Anesthesia Research Unit in the MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. "If they are confirmed by future studies in animals and humans, these findings would suggest that some anesthetics may be safer than others in young children and indicate ways to reduce risks."
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