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©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatr. May 19, 2020; 10(5): 81-94
Published online May 19, 2020. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v10.i5.81
Published online May 19, 2020. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v10.i5.81
Neuroendocrine, epigenetic, and intergenerational effects of general anesthetics
Anatoly E Martynyuk, Department of Anesthesiology and the McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL 32610, United States
Ling-Sha Ju, Timothy E Morey, Department of Anesthesiology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL 32610, United States
Jia-Qiang Zhang, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, People's Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450003, Henan Province, China
Author contributions: The authors conducted literature review and analysis, drafted and critically revised the manuscript, and gave final approval.
Supported by National Institutes of Health , No. R01NS091542 ; National Natural Science Foundation of China , No. 81771149, No. U1704165 .
Conflict-of-interest statement: No potential conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Anatoly E Martynyuk, DSc, PhD, Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and the McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida College of Medicine, 1600 SW Archer Road, PO Box 100254, Gainesville, FL 32610, United States. amartynyuk@anest.ufl.edu
Received: December 24, 2019
Peer-review started: December 24, 2019
First decision: February 20, 2020
Revised: March 18, 2020
Accepted: March 25, 2020
Article in press: March 25, 2020
Published online: May 19, 2020
Peer-review started: December 24, 2019
First decision: February 20, 2020
Revised: March 18, 2020
Accepted: March 25, 2020
Article in press: March 25, 2020
Published online: May 19, 2020
Core Tip
Core tip: The GABAergic general anesthetics may act as stressors and endocrine disruptors in neonates and young adults. They may induce two distinct types of long-term adverse effects: Neuroendocrine effects (the somatic effects) and epigenetic reprogramming of germ cells (the germ cell effects). The latter may pass neurobehavioral abnormalities to male offspring. Compared to the somatic cells, the germ cells may be more sensitive to the deleterious effects of general anesthetics, raising the possibility that the offspring may be affected even when levels of anesthesia are not harmful to the exposed parents. Further rigorous experimental testing of all these possibilities is required.