Inhaled Anesthetics Linked to Alzheimer’s

Surgical inhaled anesthetics are more likely to cause the Alzheimer’s disease-related plaques in the brain than intravenous anesthetics, says a U.S. study.

University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers in a journal article, published in Biochemistry, say it is the first report using state-of-the-art nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopic technique to explain the detailed molecular mechanism behind the aggregation of amyloid peptide due to various anesthetics.

Many people know of or have heard of an elderly person who went into surgery where they received anesthesia and when they woke up they had noticeable memory loss or cognitive dysfunction, said lead author Pravat K. Mandal of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Our prior research had shown in molecular models that anesthetics may play a role by causing amyloid peptides to clump together — something that is thought to signal the advancement of Alzheimer’s disease. In this study, we set out to see why this was happening and to determine if any one form of anesthesia might be a safer option than another.