P Joeri | PubMed Health

PubMed2000

Effect of pentobarbital on visual processing in man.

To investigate the effect of sedative agents on visual processing in humans, we analysed the BOLD contrast signal response to a visual stimulation paradigm in 15 healthy, adult volunteers using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The subjects were tested during alert state and under sedation following intravenous administration of pentobarbital. The injection of pentobarbital not only significantly reduced the response signal strength but the reduction in BOLD contrast signal was related to the ratio of amount of sedative administered and the subject's body weight. The three subjects with the highest relative sedative dosage even displayed an inverted (negative) BOLD contrast signal. A significant reduction in the number of positively correlating pixels was found 15 min after administration of pentobarbital. All measured parameters returned to near pre-sedative levels by the end of the experimental session. The relative dosage dependence of the strength of the BOLD signal the negative BOLD signal in the three subjects with the highest relative sedative dosage indicates that pentobarbital had a more pronounced effect on cerebral blood flow than on cerebral oxidative metabolism.

Adult↗

PubMed1999

Visual processing in infants and children studied using functional MRI.

We studied the development of visual processing in 58 children, ranging from 1 d to 12 y of age (median age 29 mo), using functional magnetic resonance imaging. All but nine children had either been sedated using chloral hydrate (n = 12) or pentobarbital (n = 28). Nine children were studied under a full halothane/ N2O:O2 anesthesia. In the first postnatal month, 30% of the neonates showed a positive blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) contrast signal, whereas, for infants between the ages of 1 mo and 1 y, 27% did so. Thirty-one percent of children between 1 and 6 y of age and 71% of children aged 6 y and above showed a positive BOLD contrast signal change to our visual stimulation paradigm. Besides the usual positive BOLD contrast signal change, we also noted that a large portion of the children measured displayed a negative BOLD contrast signal change. This negative BOLD contrast signal change was observed in 30% of children up to 1 mo of age, in 27% between 1 mo and 1 y of age, in 47% between 1 and 6 y of age, and in 14% of children 6 y and older. In the children in which we observed a negative correlating BOLD contrast signal change, the locus was more anterior and more lateral than the positive BOLD contrast signal, placing it in the secondary visual cortical area. The results indicate that when using functional magnetic resonance imaging on children, the primary visual cortical area does not respond functionally in the same manner as that of the adult until 1.5 y of age. This supports earlier clinical and electrophysiologic findings that different cortical mechanisms seem to contribute to visual perception at different times postnatally.

Adult↗