Department of Paediatrics, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
Anesthesiology. 2010 May;112(5):1097-104. doi: 10.1097/ALN.0b013e3181d692c2.
Implicit memory cannot be consciously recalled but may be revealed by changes in behavior. There is evidence for implicit memory formation during anesthesia in adults, but several studies in children have found no evidence for implicit memory. This may be due to insensitive testing. Also many of these tests were undertaken under controlled conditions. It remains unknown whether implicit memory is formed during routine pediatric anesthesia. The aim of this study was to determine whether there is evidence of implicit memory formation during routine anesthesia in children, using a degraded auditory stimulus recognition task.
Three hundred and twelve children, aged 5-12 yr, were randomly assigned to be played either a sheep sound or white noise continuously through headphones during general anesthesia. No attempt was made to standardize the anesthetic. On recovery, children were played a sheep sound degraded by a white noise mask that progressively decreased over 60 s, with the outcome being the time taken to correctly recognize the sheep sound.
Three hundred children completed the task. A comparison of the distribution of recognition times between the two groups found little evidence that exposure to a sheep sound during anesthesia was associated with postoperative time to recognition of a degraded sheep sound (hazard ratio 1.14, 95% CI of 0.90-1.43, P = 0.28).
No implicit memory formation during routine anesthesia was demonstrated in children. It is increasingly likely that the potential clinical implications of implicit memory formation are less of a concern for pediatric anesthetists.
内隐记忆不能被有意识地回忆，但可能会通过行为的变化而显现出来。有证据表明，成年人在接受麻醉时会形成内隐记忆，但一些针对儿童的研究并未发现内隐记忆的证据。这可能是由于测试不敏感所致。此外，许多此类测试都是在受控条件下进行的。目前尚不清楚在常规儿科麻醉期间是否会形成内隐记忆。本研究旨在使用听觉刺激识别任务来确定在常规麻醉期间儿童是否有形成内隐记忆的证据。
312 名年龄在 5-12 岁的儿童被随机分配在全身麻醉期间通过耳机连续播放绵羊声或白噪声。未尝试对麻醉进行标准化。在恢复期间，给孩子们播放一段绵羊声，该绵羊声被白噪声掩蔽逐渐降低，持续 60 秒，结果是正确识别绵羊声所需的时间。
300 名儿童完成了任务。对两组识别时间分布的比较发现，暴露于麻醉期间的绵羊声与术后识别降级绵羊声的时间之间几乎没有关联（危险比 1.14，95%置信区间 0.90-1.43，P=0.28）。
在儿童常规麻醉期间未发现内隐记忆形成。内隐记忆形成对儿科麻醉师的潜在临床影响不太可能成为关注焦点。
