Neonatal anesthesia and dysregulation of the epigenome†.

ABSTRACT: Each year, millions of infants and children are anesthetized for medical and surgical procedures. Yet, a substantial body of preclinical evidence suggests that anesthetics are neurotoxins that cause rapid and widespread apoptotic cell death in the brains of infant rodents and nonhuman primates. These animals have persistent impairments in cognition and behavior many weeks or months after anesthesia exposure, leading us to hypothesize that anesthetics do more than simply kill brain cells. Indeed, anesthetics cause chronic neuropathology in neurons that survive the insult, which then interferes with major aspects of brain development, synaptic plasticity, and neuronal function. Understanding the phenomenon of anesthesia-induced developmental neurotoxicity is of critical public health importa

SUBMITTER: Cabrera OH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8444668 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature