Unconscious (Psychology) Clinical Trial
Official title:
Memory Priming for Abstract and Concrete Words in General BIS Guided Propofol vs. Sevoflurane Anesthesia
Memory priming under general anesthesia is a phenomenon of incredible interest in the study
of consciousness and unconscious cognitive processing, and for clinical practice.
However results from anesthesiological literature are divergent and methodologies vary.
To overcome these limits, the present study aims at better defining the phenomenon of memory
priming under general anesthesia, manipulating as experimental variables both the anesthetic
drug used and the stimuli primed.
Some patients may develop serious psychological sequelae after surgical intervention under
general anesthesia due to implicit memory formation of intraoperative events.
A number of studies in the field of anesthesiology have tried to better define the phenomenon
of implicit memory in general anesthesia, with conflicting results. While some studies
demonstrated the existence of unconscious memory formation also under adequate general
anesthesia (BIS ranging 40-60), others state that implicit memory formation is possible only
during light sedation, and that, therefore, traumatic disorders due to unconscious
intraoperative memories are imputable to inadequate anesthesiological intraoperative
management. The methodologies used by these studies, however, are very heterogeneous, and
often inaccurate from a cognitive point of view. Data from cognitive neuroscience, in fact,
demonstrate that different linguistic material, e.g. abstract and concrete words, are
processed and retrieved via different networks in the brain. Then, since different
anesthetics are known to target different areas of the brain, it is assumable that implicit
memory formation is influenced both by the specific drug used and by the type of stimuli
primed.
Therefore in this experiment, the investigators aim at testing implicit memory for different
word category, abstract vs. concrete words, in patients undergoing either propofol or
sevoflurane general anesthesia. Also, a very strict methodology was used both for the
construction of the stimuli and the stimulation and testing procedure, in order to maximize
the priming effect and exclude the risk of false positive results. The investigators
hypothesize that, considering the existing data on propofol and sevoflurane effects on the
brain, and the known neural correlates for abstract and concrete word processing, the priming
effect would be different for abstract and concrete words between patients under propofol or
sevoflurane anesthesia.
;
| Status | Clinical Trial | Phase | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Completed |
NCT03006692 -
Diagnostic Value of Arterial Blood Gas Analysis in Prehospital Patients
|