Psychological studies of human performance as affected by traces of enflurane and nitrous oxide

Thirty human subjects were exposed for four hours to 500 ppm N-2O and 15 ppm enflurane in air and then, within five minutes, given a 35-minute battery of psychological tests. Performance of a divided-attention audiovisual task and a digit-span memory test were significantly decreased compared with control data following exposure to air. A tachistoscopic task, four tests from the Wechsler memory scale, and five others from the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale were unaffected. Thirty subjects exposed to 500 ppm N-2-O in air only scored significantly lower on the digit-span test only.