CENTRAL ANESTHETIC EFFECTS AND SUPPRESSION OF AUDITORY INFORMATION-PROCESSING DURING GENERAL-ANESTHESIA

Several electrophysiological methods have been developed to quantify c entral anaesthetic effects. Especially, midlatency auditory evoked pot entials are suppressed in a dose dependent fashion by many general ana esthetics. This indicates that auditory information processing during anaesthesia is blocked at the level of the primary auditory cortex dos e-dependently by general anaesthetics. Furthermore, there is a close c orrelation between midlatency auditory evoked potentials and complex p sychological function as wakefulness, awareness, explicit and implicit memory during anaesthesia. Midlatency auditory evoked potentials seem to be a promising method to quantify central cortical anaesthetic eff ects on complex psychological function.