Recording Brain Electromagnetic Activity During the Administration of the Gaseous Anesthetic Agents Xenon and Nitrous Oxide in Healthy Volunteers.
Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE January 13, 2018 Andria Pelentritou, Levin Kuhlmann, John Cormack et al.
Inhaling the gaseous anesthetics nitrous oxide (N2O) and xenon (Xe) allows study of brain activity during unconsciousness via simultaneous magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG). Healthy male participants received step-wise increasing concentrations of Xe (8, 16, 24, 42%) and N2O (16, 32, 47%) in a repeated measures cross-over design. An auditory continuous performance task tracked responsiveness. The protocol, refined over multiple sessions, details subject recruitment, equipment setup, data collection, and basic analysis. Results show sensor-level raw data, spectral topography, minimal head movements, and level-dependent effects on auditory evoked responses. The method can be adapted for volatile and intravenous anesthetics to advance understanding of macro-scale anesthesia mechanisms.