A study with young rodents shows repeated anesthesia wipes out memory-forming brain cells, scientists say.
The results suggest children may also suffer learning and memory impairments after repeatedly being put out of consciousness to undergo surgeries, according to the researchers. But plenty of exercise may help undo the damage, they noted.
Adult animals weren’t found to suffer long-term impairment from anesthesia.
The study, from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, is published in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow & Metabolism.
Anesthetics are typically administered to patients by inhalation, injection or both before significant surgeries. Patients then fall asleep, relax their muscles and feel no pain. Often several different drugs are given at once; they take about 15 to 20 seconds to work, depending on when the anesthetic reaches the brain.
“Pediatric anesthetists have long suspected that children who are anesthetised repeatedly over the course of just a few years may suffer from impaired memory and learning,” said Gothenburg researcher Klas Blomgren.
His research team accidentally discovered a link between repeated anesthesia and loss of key stem cells that mature into memory-forming cells. The group was studying what happens to stem cells exposed to strong magnetic fields, as during a brain scan.
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