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General Anesthesia: Overview

General Anesthesia: Overview

Anesthesia is a medical procedure that uses drugs for CNS suppression to enable painless surgeries and procedures. The selection of anesthetics is influenced by their pharmacokinetic properties, side effects, and patient characteristics. Various types of anesthesia include general, local, regional, spinal, and inhalational.
General anesthesia induces unconsciousness in the whole body, while the others target specific areas or sensations. It is administered to minimize adverse effects, maintain...

Stages of General Anesthesia

Stages of General Anesthesia

Various sedation levels offer significant advantages in facilitating procedural interventions for patients undergoing medical or invasive surgical procedures. These levels span from anxiolysis to general anesthesia, providing a spectrum of sedative effects to cater to specific patient needs. Anxiolysis reduces anxiety and is achieved through minimal sedation, enabling patients to remain awake and responsive while feeling more at ease during the procedure. This level can benefit minor...

Pharmacodynamics in Geriatric Patients: Effects of Age

Pharmacodynamics in Geriatric Patients: Effects of Age

Age-related pharmacokinetic changes are extensively documented, but understanding age-related pharmacodynamic alterations is relatively limited. This knowledge gap can be partly attributed to the complexity of developing appropriate measures of drug responses compared to bioanalytical methods for determining drug concentrations.Most information regarding age-related differences in human pharmacodynamics originates from cross-sectional studies. However, these studies assume that observed mean...

Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Absorption

Pharmacokinetics in Geriatric Patients: Effect of Age on Drug Absorption

As individuals age, their body's physiology evolves, affecting drug pharmacokinetics. The most apparent changes occur in the gastrointestinal tract, where an increase in gastric pH, a delay in gastric emptying, and a reduction in gastrointestinal motility are observed. Remarkably, these changes do not substantially modify the absorption of orally administered drugs, particularly those absorbed via passive diffusion.Transdermal drug delivery emerges as a highly viable method for older adults due...

Inhalational Anesthetics: Overview

Inhalational Anesthetics: Overview

Inhalation anesthetics are drugs that induce general anesthesia upon inhalation. They work by increasing the sensitivity of GABAA receptors or inhibiting NMDA receptors, leading to a decrease in central nervous system activity. The depth of anesthesia can be rapidly adjusted by changing the concentration of the inhaled gas. Some common examples of inhalational anesthetics include volatile liquids like isoflurane, desflurane, sevoflurane and gases like xenon and nitrous oxide. Isoflurane, a...

Parenteral Anesthetics: Overview

Parenteral Anesthetics: Overview

Intravenous anesthetics are drugs administered parenterally to induce anesthesia or sedation. Propofol is a widely used agent formulated as a 1% emulsion in soybean oil, glycerol, and egg phosphatide. It induces rapid anesthesia primarily due to its rapid distribution from the bloodstream to target tissues and is metabolized in the liver. However, it can cause significant pain on injection and hypertriglyceridemia. Fospropofol, a water-based prodrug of propofol, lacks these adverse effects.

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Updated: May 10, 2026

Assessing Changes in Synaptic Plasticity Using an Awake Closed-Head Injury Model of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Assessing Changes in Synaptic Plasticity Using an Awake Closed-Head Injury Model of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Published on: January 20, 2023

The aging brain and anesthesia.

Emery N Brown¹, Patrick L Purdon

¹Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02114, USA. enb@neurostat.mit.edu

Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology

|July 4, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Understanding the aging brain

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Published on: May 12, 2018

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Gerontology
Anesthesiology

Background:

The aging population is increasing, leading to more elderly patients undergoing surgery.
Postoperative cognitive disorders, such as delirium and dysfunction, are common in this demographic.
Current anesthetic practices for the elderly lack strong support from an understanding of age-related brain changes.

Purpose of the Study:

To review the neurophysiology and neuroanatomy of normal aging.
To examine current clinical management recommendations for general anesthesia and sedation in the elderly.
To bridge the gap between aging brain research and anesthetic practices.

Main Methods:

Review of neurophysiological and neuroanatomical studies on aging.
Analysis of recent recommendations for anesthetic management in elderly patients.
Integration of functional imaging and electrophysiological findings.

Main Results:

Significant advancements are being made in understanding the aging brain's neurophysiology and neuroanatomy.
Existing anesthetic management strategies for the elderly are not fully informed by this evolving knowledge.
Functional imaging and electrophysiological studies provide new insights into age-related brain changes.

Conclusions:

Anesthesiologists should incorporate knowledge of aging brain neurophysiology and neuroanatomy into their standard practice.
This understanding can optimize the use of electroencephalography (EEG) for monitoring elderly patients.
Improved monitoring can lead to more accurate tracking of brain states during anesthesia in older adults.