Grant: Operating Grant

Over 234 million patients undergo general anesthesia each year. A major adverse effect of most general anesthetics is memory loss, which may persist for days to months. Such memory loss is associated with prolonged hospitalization, increased costs, loss of independence and even increased mortality, yet no treatments are available. Our exciting preliminary results suggest the first safe, plausible and effective strategy to prevent post-anesthetic memory loss. We have also identified a potential underlying molecular mechanism. Specifically, we previously identified a receptor in the brain that, when activated, causes memory deficits. We have now discovered that when anesthetics activate these receptors, they unexpectedly trigger a long-lasting increase in the number of these receptors, which persists long after the drugs are eliminated. Pretreatment with a drug that interferes with the initial anesthetic activation of the receptors prevents long-term memory loss. We anticipate that our results will be rapidly translated into new therapies to prevent memory loss after general anesthesia and possibly other related memory disorders.