AUTHOR=Chini Mattia , Gretenkord Sabine , Kostka Johanna K. , Pöpplau Jastyn A. , Cornelissen Laura , Berde Charles B. , Hanganu-Opatz Ileana L. , Bitzenhofer Sebastian H. TITLE=Neural Correlates of Anesthesia in Newborn Mice and Humans JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neural Circuits VOLUME=13 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neural-circuits/articles/10.3389/fncir.2019.00038 DOI=10.3389/fncir.2019.00038 ISSN=1662-5110 ABSTRACT=

Monitoring the hypnotic component of anesthesia during surgeries is critical to prevent intraoperative awareness and reduce adverse side effects. For this purpose, electroencephalographic (EEG) methods complementing measures of autonomic functions and behavioral responses are in use in clinical practice. However, in human neonates and infants existing methods may be unreliable and the correlation between brain activity and anesthetic depth is still poorly understood. Here, we characterized the effects of different anesthetics on brain activity in neonatal mice and developed machine learning approaches to identify electrophysiological features predicting inspired or end-tidal anesthetic concentration as a proxy for anesthetic depth. We show that similar features from EEG recordings can be applied to predict anesthetic concentration in neonatal mice and humans. These results might support a novel strategy to monitor anesthetic depth in human newborns.