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Updated: Jun 21, 2025

Optogenetic Activation of Afferent Pathways in Brain Slices and Modulation of Responses by Volatile Anesthetics
Published on: July 23, 2020
Propofol anesthesia destabilizes neural dynamics across cortex
Adam J Eisen1, Leo Kozachkov2, André M Bastos3
1The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; The K. Lisa Yang Integrative Computational Neuroscience Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
Abstract:
Every day, hundreds of thousands of people undergo general anesthesia. One hypothesis is that anesthesia disrupts dynamic stability-the ability of the brain to balance excitability with the need to be stable and controllable. To test this hypothesis, we developed a method for quantifying changes in population-level dynamic stability in complex systems: delayed linear analysis for stability estimation (DeLASE). Propofol was used to transition animals between the awake state and anesthetized unconsciousness. DeLASE was applied to macaque cortex local field potentials (LFPs). We found that neural dynamics were more unstable in unconsciousness compared with the awake state. Cortical trajectories mirrored predictions from destabilized linear systems. We mimicked the effect of propofol in simulated neural networks by increasing inhibitory tone. This in turn destabilized the networks, as observed in the neural data. Our results suggest that anesthesia disrupts dynamical stability that is required for consciousness.
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