Study: Nitrous Oxide Has a More Rapid Onset With Direct Measure of Brain Activity

Researchers tested a more direct measure of anesthetic activity to increase accuracy of the model brain uptake, according to a study in the September issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia.

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Previous modeling of kinetics of uptake and elimination of anesthetic drugs use the electroencephalogram, which lags brain activity because of time to acquire a signal.

The researchers studied 20 subjects at 30 percent nitrous oxide and monitored the digit symbol substitution test. They determined in subanesthetic concentrations, nitrous oxide has rapid onset and offset with a half time of two minutes. This is less than the values expected during anesthesia using processed electroencephalogram.

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