Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Sedatives and Hypnotics Drugs: Miscellaneous Agents

Sedatives and Hypnotics Drugs: Miscellaneous Agents

Sedatives and hypnotics encompass a wide range of substances, each with its unique mechanism of action, uses, and potential adverse effects.
Melatonin congeners like ramelteon (Rozerem) and tasimelteon (Hetlioz) selectively bind to melatonin receptors (MT1 and MT2) and thus mimic the actions of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep-wake cycles. Tasimelteon is primarily used for non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder, common in blind patients. They are also used to treat conditions like insomnia...

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.

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...

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), or shock therapy, remains a critical biomedical intervention for severe, treatment-resistant depression. While its origins can be traced back to Hippocrates' observations that malaria-induced convulsions alleviated mental illness, modern ECT has evolved significantly from its earlier, more primitive applications. First introduced in 1938 by Ugo Cerletti and his colleagues, ECT involves inducing controlled seizures using electrical currents. In its early years,...

Sedatives and Hypnotics: Overview

Sedatives and Hypnotics: Overview

Sedatives are drugs that alleviate anxiety, while hypnotics induce sleep. Both classes of medication suppress neuronal activity, leading to a calming effect for sedatives and facilitating sleep for hypnotics.
Sedative-hypnotics are categorized into barbiturates, benzodiazepines (BZDs), and non-benzodiazepines or Z-drugs. These drugs work by suppressing central nervous system activity, and this suppression is dose-dependent. Older sedative medications, like barbiturates, follow a linear curve in...

Sedatives and Hypnotics Drugs: Benzodiazepines

Sedatives and Hypnotics Drugs: Benzodiazepines

Benzodiazepines have both sedative and hypnotic properties. They include compounds such as diazepam (Valium) and alprazolam (Xanax). Structurally, their cores are similar, consisting of the fusion of a benzene ring and a diazepine ring, but they share a common mechanism of action in the central nervous system (CNS).
Benzodiazepines work by enhancing the effects of the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA. They bind to the GABAA receptor, increasing its affinity for GABA, which opens chloride...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Severe stenosis of major intracranial arteries: an important risk factor for infarction complications after combined revascularization in adult patients with ischemic moyamoya disease.

Chinese neurosurgical journal·2026

Same author

From Silence to Awakening: The Role of Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuations in Predicting Recovery After Spinal Cord Stimulation.

Journal of integrative neuroscience·2026

Same author

Global White Matter Damage in Focal Brainstem Injury Patients With Disorders of Consciousness: A Diffusion Tensor Tractography Study.

European journal of neurology·2025

Same author

Differential engagement of thalamic nuclei orchestrates consciousness states across anesthesia, sleep, and disorders of consciousness.

Communications biology·2025

Same author

Electroencephalogram prediction of propofol effects on neuromodulation in disorders of consciousness.

Frontiers in neurology·2025

Same author

Integrating machine learning for the identification of ubiquitination-associated genes in moyamoya disease.

Frontiers in neurology·2025

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 14, 2026

Remote Limb Ischemic Preconditioning: A Neuroprotective Technique in Rodents

Remote Limb Ischemic Preconditioning: A Neuroprotective Technique in Rodents

Published on: June 2, 2015

Esketamine Preserves Network Connectivity and Promotes Recovery in Consciousness Disorders.

Xuewei Qin¹, Xuanling Chen¹, Lan Yao¹

¹Department of Anesthesiology, Peking University International Hospital, Beijing, China.

CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics

|May 13, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Esketamine anesthesia improved neurological outcomes in patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) compared to propofol. This neuroprotective effect was linked to preserved brain complexity and faster recovery, suggesting esketamine as a potentially superior anesthetic for DoC.

Keywords:

coma recovery scale–revised disorders of consciousness electroencephalography esketamine network connectivity propofol

More Related Videos

Induction of an Isoelectric Brain State to Investigate the Impact of Endogenous Synaptic Activity on Neuronal Excitability In Vivo

Induction of an Isoelectric Brain State to Investigate the Impact of Endogenous Synaptic Activity on Neuronal Excitability In Vivo

Published on: March 31, 2016

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 14, 2026

Remote Limb Ischemic Preconditioning: A Neuroprotective Technique in Rodents

Remote Limb Ischemic Preconditioning: A Neuroprotective Technique in Rodents

Published on: June 2, 2015

Induction of an Isoelectric Brain State to Investigate the Impact of Endogenous Synaptic Activity on Neuronal Excitability In Vivo

Induction of an Isoelectric Brain State to Investigate the Impact of Endogenous Synaptic Activity on Neuronal Excitability In Vivo

Published on: March 31, 2016

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Anesthesiology
Critical Care Medicine

Background:

Disorders of consciousness (DoC) pose significant challenges with limited treatment options.
Anesthetic choice during procedures like spinal cord stimulation may impact neurological recovery.
Comparative data on anesthetic effects in DoC patients is scarce.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the neurophysiological and clinical effects of esketamine versus propofol in DoC patients.
To compare anesthetic-induced changes in brain complexity and functional connectivity.
To assess the impact of anesthetic choice on patient recovery and consciousness outcomes.

Main Methods:

Prospective, non-randomized comparative effectiveness trial involving 34 DoC patients undergoing spinal cord stimulator implantation.
Patients received either esketamine (n=17) or propofol (n=17) as primary anesthetic.
Multimodal assessments included Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (CRS-R), high-density electroencephalography (EEG) for permutation entropy (PE) and weighted phase lag index (wPLI), with multivariable regression for confounder adjustment.

Main Results:

Esketamine group showed faster recovery of spontaneous respiration (12.02 vs. 17.42 min, p=0.005) and reduced vasopressor need (17.65% vs. 52.94%, p=0.034) compared to propofol.
EEG analysis indicated esketamine better preserved brain electrical complexity (higher PE, p<0.001) and gamma-band functional connectivity (wPLI, p=0.054).

Conclusions:

Esketamine demonstrated superior neurophysiological preservation over propofol in DoC patients.
Preserved neural complexity and connectivity with esketamine correlated with accelerated respiratory recovery and hemodynamic stability.
These findings support esketamine's potential as a neuroprotective anesthetic, improving consciousness outcomes at 3 months.