Six-species anesthesia study describes shorter-lasting, less coordinated brain activity
HealthUnverifiedUpdated:
A research announcement describes common changes under anesthesia across six species, from humans to worms. Neural activity reportedly became shorter-lasting and less coordinated across regions; the result has not been independently verified.
Shorter-lasting neural activity across six species
An international research group compared neural activity during wakefulness and anesthesia in humans, macaques, marmosets, mice, zebrafish and nematodes. The group reports that intrinsic neural time scales shortened under anesthesia in all six species, while synchronization between brain regions also declined across multiple anesthetics and measurement methods.
The overall reason why anesthetics with different mechanisms produce a shared brain state across species had not been sufficiently understood, according to the research release.
The researchers characterize anesthesia not simply as weaker brain activity, but as a state in which neural activity persists for less time and coordination between brain regions declines. They call this pattern “spatiotemporal isolation” of neural activity.
The reported result offers a common way to describe anesthetized brain states across evolutionarily distant species and different anesthetic conditions. In macaques, changes moved in the opposite direction when thalamic deep-brain stimulation was associated with restored behavioral responsiveness.
Sources
- 理化学研究所 研究成果麻酔がもたらす脳の「時空間的孤立」Read source →