ArticleBritish journal of anaesthesia2017
Visual recognition memory is impaired in rhesus monkeys repeatedly exposed to sevoflurane in infancy.
Article in British journal of anaesthesia, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 66 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
66 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 108 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early childhood exposure to general anesthesia and subsequent risk of learning disabilities: a systematic review and meta-analysis of cohort studies.BMC anesthesiology · 2026Pooled it
- General anesthesia in children and long-term neurodevelopmental deficits: A systematic review.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2022Pooled it
- Effects of Anesthesia Neurotoxicity on Oligodendrocyte Development and Myelination: An In Vitro Study Using Primary Cultures.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- The Janus Face of Isoflurane: A Dose-Age-Response Model of Cognitive Impact.Biomolecules · 2026Review
- Animal models of delirium: a narrative review.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
- Compensatory attenuation of cortical apoptosis by SK2 downregulation following ketamine anesthesia.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Somatostatin and its receptors involvement in sevoflurane-induced neurotoxicity: a narrative review.BMC anesthesiology · 2025Review
- Disruption of Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinase Partially Mediates Neonatal Isoflurane Anesthesia-Induced Changes in Dendritic Spines and Cognitive Function in Juvenile Mice.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Repeated sevoflurane exposure causes hypomyelination in the prefrontal cortex of adult male mice.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Up-regulation of miR-490-3p improves learning/memory disability of sevoflurane exposure by relieving neuroinflammation.Toxicology research · 2025Article
- Single-Nucleus Transcriptomic Taxonomy of Multiple Sevoflurane-Induced Cell Type Specificity in the Hippocampus of Juvenile Non-human Primates.Neuroscience bulletin · 2024Article
- The role of anesthesia in peri‑operative neurocognitive disorders: Molecular mechanisms and preventive strategies.Fundamental research · 2024Review
- Translatome and transcriptome profiling of neonatal mice hippocampus exposed to sevoflurane anesthesia.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Siglec-E Ligand Downregulation on Hippocampus Neurons Induced Inflammation in Sevoflurane-Associated Perioperative Neurocognitive Disorders in Aged Mice.Inflammation · 2024Article
- Effects of multiple anesthetic exposures on rhesus macaque brain development: a longitudinal structural MRI analysis.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Needle in a haystack: localising the long-term neuronal changes from early-life exposure to general anaesthesia.British journal of anaesthesia · 2023Article
- Proteomic analysis of gene expression in the prefrontal cortex in infant rhesus macaques after multiple sevoflurane exposures.Journal of anesthesia · 2023Article
- Neurobehavioral effects of general anesthesia and cochlear implantation on hearing-impaired infants: A prospective observational cohort study.Brain and behavior · 2023Observational
- Effects of Early Exposure to Isoflurane on Susceptibility to Chronic Pain Are Mediated by Increased Neural Activity Due to Actions of the Mammalian Target of the Rapamycin Pathway.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Lactate Improves Long-term Cognitive Impairment Induced By Repeated Neonatal Sevoflurane Exposures Through SIRT1-mediated Regulation of Adult Hippocampal Neurogenesis and Synaptic Plasticity in Male Mice.Molecular neurobiology · 2023Article
6 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundExperimental studies in animals have shown that exposure to general anaesthesia in infancy can cause loss of cells in the central nervous system and long-term impairments in neurocognitive function. Some human epidemiological studies have shown increased risk of learning disability after repeated anaesthesia exposure in early childhood. Thus, we investigated in a highly translational rhesus monkey model, whether repeated exposure in infancy to the inhalation anaesthetic sevoflurane is associated with impaired visual recognition memory during the first two yr of life.
methodsRhesus monkeys of both sexes were exposed to sevoflurane inhalation anaesthesia on approximately postnatal day 7 and then again 14 and 28 days later, for four h each time. Visual recognition memory was tested using the visual paired comparison task, which measures memory by assessing preference for looking at a new image over a previously-viewed image. Monkeys were tested at 6-10 months of age, again at 12-18 months of age, and again at 24-30 months of age.
resultsNo memory impairment was detected at 6-10 months old, but significant impairment (reduced time looking at the novel image) was observed at 12-18 and 24-30 months old.
conclusionsRepeated exposure of infant rhesus monkeys to sevoflurane results in visual recognition memory impairment that emerges after the first yr of life. This is consistent with epidemiological studies that show increased risk of learning disability after repeated exposure to anaesthesia in infancy/early childhood. Moreover, these deficits may emerge at later developmental stages, even when memory performance is unaffected earlier in development.
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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.