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Surgery increases cell death and induces changes in gene expression compared with anesthesia alone in the developing piglet brain. Published in PLOSOne

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

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Title Surgery increases cell death and induces changes in gene expression compared with anesthesia alone in the developing piglet brain. Published in PLOSOne
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/A1ZU5P
 
Creator Broad, Kevin
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description In a range of animal species, exposure of the brain to general anaesthesia without surgery during early infancy may adversely affect its neural and cognitive development. The mechanisms mediating this are complex but include an increase in brain cell death. In humans, attempts to link adverse cognitive development to infantile anaesthesia exposure have yielded ambiguous results. One caveat that may influence the interpretation of human studies is that infants are not exposed to general anaesthesia without surgery, raising the possibility that surgery itself, may contribute to adverse cognitive development. Using piglets, we investigated whether a minor surgical procedure increases cell death and disrupts neuro-developmental and cognitively salient gene transcription in the neonatal brain. We randomly assigned neonatal male piglets to a group who received 6h of 2% isoflurane anaesthesia or a group who received an identical anaesthesia plus 15 mins of surgery designed to replicate an inguinal hernia repair. Compared to anesthesia alone, surgery-induced significant increases in cell death in eight areas of the brain. Using RNAseq data derived from all 12 piglets per group we also identified significant changes in the expression of 181 gene transcripts induced by surgery in the cingulate cortex, pathway analysis of these changes suggests that surgery influences the thrombin, aldosterone, axonal guidance, B cell, ERK-5, eNOS and GABAA signalling pathways. This suggests a number of novel mechanisms by which surgery may influence neural and cognitive development independently or synergistically with the effects of anaesthesia.
The data here describes the incidence of cell death in the cingulate cortex of piglets exposed to anesthetia compared with those exposed to anesthesia and surgery.
 
Subject Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
 
Contributor Broad, Kevin