British journal of anaesthesia
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Multicenter Study
Performance on the Operant Test Battery in young children exposed to procedures requiring general anaesthesia: the MASK study.
It is not known whether the neurotoxicity produced by anaesthetics administered to young animals can also occur in children. Exposure of infant macaques to ketamine impairs performance in selected domains of the Operant Test Battery (OTB), which can also be administered to children. This study determined whether a similar pattern of results on the OTB is found in children exposed to procedures requiring general anaesthesia before age 3 yr. ⋯ These findings provide little evidence to support the hypothesis that children exposed to procedures requiring anaesthesia show deficits on OTB tasks that are similar to those observed in non-human primates.