Anesthesiology
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Intravenous Lidocaine Does Not Improve Neurologic Outcomes after Cardiac Surgery: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Intravenous lidocaine infusions for 48 hours perioperatively do not reduce postoperative cognitive decline up to 1 year after cardiac surgery.
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Observational Study
Dynamic Cortical Connectivity during General Anesthesia in Surgical Patients.
Simple measurement of cortical functional connectivity will not be enough to assess adequacy of general anesthesia.
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Comment Letter
Intubation in Operating Room versus Intensive Care: Comment.
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General anesthetics have been used to ablate consciousness during surgery for more than 150 yr. Despite significant advances in our understanding of their molecular-level pharmacologic effects, comparatively little is known about how anesthetics alter brain dynamics to cause unconsciousness. ⋯ The authors review data from acute brain slices and organotypic cultures showing that anesthetics with differing molecular mechanisms of action share in common the ability to impair neurophysiologic communication. While many questions remain, together, ex vivo and in vivo investigations suggest that a unified understanding of both clinical anesthesia and the neural basis of consciousness is attainable.