Question

Researchers have concluded that exposure to anesthesia at a young age (7 days old) in rats has led to degeneration in the brain and learning deficits. This led them to hypothesize that similar effects may also be seen in humans, especially in an age of neonatal care and infants undergoing surgery to correct defects. To test this hypothesis, another team of researchers recruited 105 pairs of siblings. One sibling was exposed to general anesthesia before they were 36 months old and the other sibling was not. These siblings were then evaluated between the ages of 8 and 15 years of age. The evaluation included comprehensive IQ testing over the course of two days (Table 1). Duration of anesthesia exposure was also recorded from medical records and used in analyses. 112 108 Verbal IQ Score (Mean) Performance IQ Score (Mean) Full-Scale IQ Score (Mean) Age at anesthesia # of sibling exposure (months) pairs Exposed Unexposed Exposed Unexposed Exposed Unexposed 0-11 113 113 108 107 12-23 110 107 110 24-36 109 111 107 108 110 111 Duration of anesthesia exposure (minutes) 0-59 113 117 115 60-119 108 106 110 110 120+ 106 105 100 104 103 105 Table 1. Mean comprehensive IQ scores for the sibling pairs broken down into verbal, performance, and full-scale. Both age at anesthesia exposure and duration of anesthesia exposure. 117 113 110 Answer the following (1 point each): a) Why would anesthesia exposure at an early age potentially cause learning deficits later in life? b) Why did the researchers choose to recruit sibling pairs for this study? c) Why would the duration of exposure during surgery be important instead of just the age at exposure? d) Based on the results in Table 1, what would you conclude regarding the effects of early-age anesthesia exposure on learning in humans? e) Propose a good follow-up to this study.

Answer 1

a)Anesthesia exposure at early age can lead to degeneration of the brain and affect the child when they grow .

b.Sibling pairs are from one parents so their traits can be same on most cases .when both are exposed to a particular thing the effects can be observed simultaneously in these types of research

c.The duration is necessary to assess the prolongation of a drug in the patient and its intensity in causing defect

d.The table shows that when a neonate is exposed to anesthesia in the early age they are prone to have brain damage