Anesthesia and the developing brain: What we know (or don’t know)

Title : Anesthesia and the developing brain: What we know (or don’t know)

Abstract:

Introduction/Background: The purpose of this lecture and scientific review is to assess the current state of knowledge regarding the potentials effects of anesthetic drugs and sedation agents on the developing brain, review physiologic changes occurring during anesthesia and surgery and potential implications of these on neurocognitive and behavioral effects that have been reported in animal and human research.

Methods: This educational experience explores the physiologic and endocrine changes seen during anesthesia and surgery, explores the effects of anesthetic drugs on cerebral blood flow, cell energy and function and cell developmental process. This experience also promotes deep thinking of these effects and their association on behavioral, cognitive and neurodevelopmental changes reported in the literature and clinical practice while separating science from fiction by using educational building blocks and intense review of current literature and ongoing research.

Discussion/Conclusion: The main gain from this review is multidimensional: 1-identify all potential association of physiologic changes and direct anesthetic agents pharmacodynamics in inducing the effect known as apoptosis or programmed cell death linked to anesthetic and sedation agents 2- review current literature and recent research to separate what we know from what we don’t know about this phenomenon 3- provide concrete clinical guidelines in how to manage and approach the clinical realities of navigating this controversial subject in pediatric clinical practice

Biography:

Dr. Carlos A. Archilla is the Chairman of the Anesthesiology Department at the Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Florida, USA. He graduated from the University Of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and completed his training in Anesthesia, Pediatric Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is an Associate Professor at Florida State University and the University of Central Florida, College of Medicine. He is a frequent presenter and expert panelist at national and international meetings. He is a member of the American Society of Anesthesiologists and the European Society of Pediatric Anesthesia.