António Melo, Hugo Leite-Almeida, Clara Ferreira, Nuno Sousa, José M. Pêgo
Abstract
Introduction: Ketamine is a general anesthetic (GA) that activates several neurotransmitter pathways in various part of the brain. The acute effects as GA are the most well-known and sought-after: to induce loss of responsiveness and to produce immobility during invasive procedures. However, there is a concern that repeated exposure might induce behavioral changes that could outlast their acute effect. Most research in this field describes how GA affects cognition and memory. Our work is to access if general anesthesia with ketamine can disrupt the motivational behavior trait, more specifically measuring impulsive behavior. Methods: Aiming to evaluate the effects of exposure to repeat anesthetic procedures with ketamine in motivational behavior, we tested animals in a paradigm of impulsive behavior, the variable delay-to-signal (VDS). In addition, accumbal and striatal medium spiny neurons morphology was assessed. Results: Our results demonstrated that previous exposure to ketamine deep-anesthesia affects inhibitory control (impulsive behavior). Specifically, ketamine exposed animals maintain a subnormal impulsive rate in the initial periods of the delays. However, in longer delays while control animals progressively refrain their premature unrewarded actions, ketamine-exposed animals show a different profile of response with higher premature unrewarded actions in the last seconds. Animals exposed to multiple ketamine anesthesia also failed to show an increase in premature unrewarded actions between the initial and final periods of 3 s delays. These behavioral alterations are paralleled by an increase in dendritic length of medium spiny neurons of the nucleus accumbens (NAc). Conclusions: This demonstrates that ketamine anesthesia acutely affects impulsive behavior. Interestingly, it also opens up the prospect of using ketamine as an agent with the ability to modulate impulsivity trait.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
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Other
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Unknown
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Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 13 August 2022.
All research outputs
#6,128,098
of 24,226,848 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
#923
of 3,337 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#105,261
of 422,858 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
#16
of 60 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 24,226,848 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 74th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,337 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.4. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 422,858 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 74% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 60 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 73% of its contemporaries.
