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Desflurane Anesthesia Alters Cortical Layer-specific Hierarchical Interactions in Rat Cerebral Cortex
Anthony G Hudetz1, Siveshigan Pillay, Shiyong Wang
1From the Center for Consciousness Science, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Anesthesiology
|February 27, 2020
Summary
General anesthetics like desflurane reduce neuronal interactions in the visual cortex, particularly feedback pathways. This local disconnection may contribute to the overall loss of consciousness during anesthesia.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Anesthesiology
- Computational Neuroscience
Background:
- Conscious perception relies on recurrent neuronal interactions in sensory, parietal, and frontal cortices.
- General anesthetics suppress these widespread neuronal interactions.
- The impact of anesthetics on local sensory cortex interactions remains less understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how desflurane affects local neuronal interactions within the visual cortex.
- To determine if desflurane alters layer-specific feedforward and feedback pathways.
Main Methods:
- Measured single-unit neuronal activity in rat visual cortex using microelectrode arrays.
- Estimated layer-specific directional interactions using mutual information and transfer entropy.
- Assessed the effect of incrementally increasing and decreasing desflurane concentrations (0-8%).
Main Results:
- Desflurane significantly reduced neuronal interactions between visual areas and within cortical layers three and five.
- Mutual information decreased by 37-41% and transfer entropy by 77-78% at 8% desflurane.
- A preferential suppression of feedback pathways, especially in layer five, was observed.
Conclusions:
- Desflurane anesthesia disrupts local neuronal interactions in the visual cortex.
- The findings highlight a preferential impact on feedback connections.
- This local disconnection may underlie the global functional disconnection causing anesthetic-induced unconsciousness.
