Department of Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University Utrecht, Netherlands ; Department of Developmental Psychology, Utrecht University Utrecht, Netherlands.
Front Cell Neurosci. 2013 Apr 23;7:42. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2013.00042. eCollection 2013.
Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) inhibitory interneurons play an important role in visual processing, as is revealed by studies administering drugs in human and monkey adults. Investigating this process in children requires different methodologies, due to ethical considerations. The current study aimed to investigate whether a new method, being general anesthesia using Sevoflurane, can be used to trace the effects of GABAergic modulation on visual brain functioning in children. To this aim, visual processing was investigated in children aged 4-12 years who were scheduled for minor urologic procedures under general anesthesia in day-care treatment. In a visual segmentation task, the difference in Event-Related Potential (ERP) response to homogeneous and textured stimuli was investigated. In addition, psychophysical performance on visual acuity and contrast sensitivity were measured. Results were compared between before and shortly after anesthesia. In two additional studies, effects at 1 day after anesthesia and possible effects of task-repetition were investigated. ERP results showed longer latency and lower amplitude of the Texture Negativity (TN) component shortly after compared to before anesthesia. No effects of anesthesia on psychophysical measurements were found. No effects at 1 day after anesthesia or of repetition were revealed either. These results show that GABAergic modulation through general anesthesia affects ERP reflections of visual segmentation in a similar way in children as benzodiazepine does in adults, but that effects are not permanent. This demonstrates that ERP measurement after anesthesia is a successful method to study effects of GABAergic modulation in children.
γ-氨基丁酸（GABA）抑制性中间神经元在视觉处理中起着重要作用，这一点在对成人和猴子进行药物给药的研究中得到了揭示。由于伦理考虑，研究儿童的这一过程需要不同的方法。本研究旨在探讨一种新方法，即使用七氟醚进行全身麻醉，是否可用于追踪 GABA 能调制对儿童视觉大脑功能的影响。为此，在接受全身麻醉下日间治疗的小泌尿科手术的 4-12 岁儿童中研究了视觉处理。在视觉分割任务中，研究了事件相关电位（ERP）对均匀和纹理刺激的反应差异。此外，还测量了视觉敏锐度和对比敏感度的心理物理性能。将结果与麻醉前和麻醉后不久进行比较。在另外两项研究中，研究了麻醉后 1 天的效果以及任务重复的可能效果。ERP 结果表明，与麻醉前相比，麻醉后不久的纹理负向（TN）成分的潜伏期更长，振幅更低。麻醉对心理物理测量没有影响。麻醉后 1 天或重复也没有显示出任何效果。这些结果表明，全身麻醉通过 GABA 能调制以与成人中苯二氮䓬相似的方式影响视觉分割的 ERP 反射，但效果不是永久性的。这表明麻醉后 ERP 测量是研究儿童 GABA 能调制影响的一种成功方法。
