Auteurs
Lebedeva YA - Zakharova AV - Sitdikova GF - Zefirov AL - Khazipov RN
Journal
Bulletin of experimental biology and medicine
Abstract
The effects of general anesthetics ketamine and midazolam, the drugs that cause neuroapoptosis at the early stages of CNS development, on electrical activity of the somatosensory cortex in newborn rats were studied using extracellular recording of local field potentials and action potentials of cortical neurons. Combined administration of ketamine (40 mg/kg) and midazolam (9 mg/kg) induced surgical coma and almost completely suppressed early oscillatory patterns and neuronal firing. These effects persisted over 3 h after injection of the anesthetics. We concluded that general anesthesia induced by combined administration of ketamine and midazolam profoundly suppressed cortical activity in newborn rats, which can trigger neuroapoptosis in the developing brain.