Trial reportBritish journal of anaesthesia2015
Effect of propofol on the medial temporal lobe emotional memory system: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in human subjects.
Trial report in British journal of anaesthesia, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neuroimaging the Effects of Intravenous Anesthetic on Amygdala Dependent Memory Processes
Neuroplasticity Induced by General Anaesthesia
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- Midazolam and Ketamine Produce Distinct Neural Changes in Memory, Pain, and Fear Networks during Pain.Anesthesiology · 2021Trial
- Effects of sedation on subjective perception of pain intensity and autonomic nervous responses to pain: A preliminary study.PloS one · 2017Trial
- From Bench to Bedside: Understanding General Anesthetics' Impact on PTSD.Current neuropharmacology · 2026Review
- The amnesic effects of propofol on functional connectivity in the hippocampus determined by functional magnetic resonance imaging in volunteers.British journal of anaesthesia · 2025Article
- Propofol differentially modulates the consolidation of schema-related and -unrelated memory.iScience · 2025Article
- Distinct effects of global signal regression on brain activity during propofol and sevoflurane anesthesia.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Effects of Sevoflurane and Propofol on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder After Emergency Trauma: A Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Implicit Memory and Anesthesia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Review
- Psychological morbidity a year after treatment in intensive care unit.Health psychology research · 2020Article
- Article
- Propofol-induced deep sedation reduces emotional episodic memory reconsolidation in humans.Science advances · 2019Article
- Complexities of human memory: relevance to anaesthetic practice.British journal of anaesthesia · 2018Review
- Circulating Endocannabinoids: From Whence Do They Come and Where are They Going?Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2018Review
- Article
- Memory and awareness in anaesthesia.British journal of anaesthesia · 2015Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSubclinical doses of propofol produce anterograde amnesia, characterized by an early failure of memory consolidation. It is unknown how propofol affects the amygdala-dependent emotional memory system, which modulates consolidation in the hippocampus in response to emotional arousal and neurohumoral stress. We present an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study of the effects of propofol on the emotional memory system in human subjects.
methodsThirty-five healthy subjects were randomized to receive propofol, at an estimated brain concentration of 0.90 μg ml(-1), or placebo. During drug infusion, emotionally arousing and neutral images were presented in a continuous recognition task, while blood-oxygen-level-dependent activation responses were acquired. After a drug-free interval of 2 h, subsequent memory for successfully encoded items was assessed. Imaging analysis was performed using statistical parametric mapping and behavioural analysis using signal detection models.
resultsPropofol had no effect on the stereotypical amygdalar response to emotional arousal, but caused marked suppression of the hippocampal response. Propofol caused memory performance to become uncoupled from amygdalar activation, but it remained correlated with activation in the posterior hippocampus, which decreased in proportion to amnesia.
conclusionsPropofol is relatively ineffective at suppressing amygdalar activation at sedative doses, but abolishes emotional modulation and causes amnesia via mechanisms that commonly involve hyporesponsiveness of the hippocampus. These findings raise the possibility that amygdala-dependent fear systems may remain intact even when a patient has diminished memory of events. This may be of clinical importance in the perioperative development of fear-based psychopathologies, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. CLINICAL
trial registrationNCT00504894.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.