Trial reportBritish journal of anaesthesia2023
Subjective experiences during dexmedetomidine- or propofol-induced unresponsiveness and non-rapid eye movement sleep in healthy male subjects.
Trial report in British journal of anaesthesia, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT01889004 (The Neural Mechanisms of Anesthesia and Human Consciousness), which is not on this map. Cited by 9 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.
The Neural Mechanisms of Anesthesia and Human Consciousness (LOC-2013)
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effect of Intraoperative Intravenous Infusion of Esketamine Combined with Dexmedetomidine on Postoperative Sleep Disturbance in Patients Undergoing Radical Mastectomy.Drug design, development and therapy · 2025Trial
- Decreased Thalamic Activity Is a Correlate for Disconnectedness during Anesthesia with Propofol, Dexmedetomidine and Sevoflurane But Not S-Ketamine.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2023Trial
- Dreaming during anaesthesia: a scoping review.British journal of anaesthesia · 2026Article
- NUFIP1-engineered exosomes modulate propofol-induced neurotoxicity in neonatal rats via the ERS apoptotic pathway.Apoptosis : an international journal on programmed cell death · 2026Article
- Emergent multiscale organisation of neural dynamics fragments in anaesthesia.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- Effect of Dexmedetomidine Combined with Esketamine on Postoperative Fatigue in Patients Undergoing Total Laparoscopic Hysterectomy: A Single-Center Randomized Double-Blinded Controlled Trial.Therapeutics and clinical risk management · 2026Article
- Consciousness and sleep.Neuron · 2024Review
- Propofol-mediated Unconsciousness Disrupts Progression of Sensory Signals through the Cortical Hierarchy.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2024Article
- Study protocol: Cerebral characterization of sensory gating in disconnected dreaming states during propofol anesthesia using fMRI.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundAnaesthetic-induced unresponsiveness and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep share common neural pathways and neurophysiological features. We hypothesised that these states bear resemblance also at the experiential level.
methodsWe compared, in a within-subject design, the prevalence and content of experiences in reports obtained after anaesthetic-induced unresponsiveness and NREM sleep. Healthy males (N=39) received dexmedetomidine (n=20) or propofol (n=19) in stepwise doses to induce unresponsiveness. Those rousable were interviewed and left unstimulated, and the procedure was repeated. Finally, the anaesthetic dose was increased 50%, and the participants were interviewed after recovery. The same participants (N=37) were also later interviewed after NREM sleep awakenings.
resultsMost subjects were rousable, with no difference between anaesthetic agents (P=0.480). Lower drug plasma concentrations were associated with being rousable for both dexmedetomidine (P=0.007) and propofol (P=0.002) but not with recall of experiences in either drug group (dexmedetomidine: P=0.543; propofol: P=0.460). Of the 76 and 73 interviews performed after anaesthetic-induced unresponsiveness and NREM sleep, 69.7% and 64.4% included experiences, respectively. Recall did not differ between anaesthetic-induced unresponsiveness and NREM sleep (P=0.581), or between dexmedetomidine and propofol in any of the three awakening rounds (P>0.05). Disconnected dream-like experiences (62.3% vs 51.1%; P=0.418) and memory incorporation of the research setting (88.7% vs 78.7%; P=0.204) were equally often present in anaesthesia and sleep interviews, respectively, whereas awareness, signifying connected consciousness, was rarely reported in either state.
conclusionsAnaesthetic-induced unresponsiveness and NREM sleep are characterised by disconnected conscious experiences with corresponding recall frequencies and content. CLINICAL
trial registrationClinical trial registration. This study was part of a larger study registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01889004).
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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.