Consciousness, Awareness, and Anesthesia

Hypnosis, amnesia, and immobility are three major therapeutic endpoints of general anesthesia. In one to two cases out of a thousand, hypnosis and amnesia are not achieved - often leaving a patient immobile but capable of experiencing and remembering intraoperative events. Awareness during general anesthesia is one of the most dreaded complications of surgery and is feared by patients and clinicians alike. Despite many advances in the field, there are also a number of unresolved questions that persist. Some of the difficulties in the detection and prevention of awareness during anesthesia relate to the underlying complexities of the neuroscientific basis of consciousness. Consciousness, Awareness, and Anesthesia is a multidisciplinary approach to both the scientific problem of consciousness and the clinical problem of awareness during general anesthesia. An international cadre of authors with expertise in anesthesiology, neurobiology, and philosophy provides a cutting-edge perspective. No other book on the subject has drawn from such a breadth of scholarship. - Internationally renowned experts on the subject - Multidisciplinary approach - Diverse opinions on current controversies Contents 1. Consciousness and anesthesiology: an introduction George A. Mashour; 2. Relevance of sleep neurobiology for cognitive neuroscience and anesthesiology Ralph Lydic, Giancarlo Vanini, and Helen Baghdoyan; 3. The neurobiology of consciousness Christof Koch and Florian Mormann; 4. Memory formation during general anesthesia Michael Alkire and Chantal Kerssens; 5. Dreaming during anesthesia Kate Leslie; 6. Etiology and risk factors of intraoperative awareness Mohammed Ghoneim; 7. Monitoring anesthetic depth Gerhard Schneider; 8. Current controversies in intraoperative awareness: I Peter Sebel and Paul S. Garcia; 9. Current controversies in intraoperative awareness: II Michael Avidan; 10. Awareness during general anesthesia in the pediatric population Andrew Davidson and Rachel Hutchens; 11. Psychological consequences of intraoperative awareness Claes Lennmarken and Gunilla Sydsjo; 12. Medicolegal consequences of intraoperative awareness Karen Domino and Chris Kent; 13. Complaints of awareness after sedation and regional anesthesia: the role of patient expectations George Mashour and Roy Esaki; 14. Philosophical implications of awareness during general anesthesia Eric Larock. Contributors George A. Mashour, Ralph Lydic, Giancarlo Vanini, Helen Baghdoyan, Christof Koch, Florian Mormann, Michael Alkire, Chantal Kerssens, Kate Leslie, Mohammed Ghoneim, Gerhard Schneider, Peter Sebel, Paul S. Garcia, Michael Avidan, Andrew Davidson, Rachel Hutchens, Claes Lennmarken, Gunilla Sydsjo, Karen Domino, Chris Kent, Roy Esaki, Eric Larock