Volatile anesthetics in cardiac surgery: Renoprotective, cardioprotective, neither, or both?

Late pharmacologic conditioning with volatile anesthetics after cardiac surgery

INTRODUCTION The aim of this randomized controlled trial was to investigate whether volatile anesthetics used for postoperative sedation have any beneficial effects on myocardial injury in cardiac surgery patients after on-pump valve replacement. METHODS Anesthesia was performed with propofol. After arrival in the intensive care unit (ICU), 117 patients were randomized to be sedated for at le...

Psychiatry: mindless or brainless, both or neither?

After a period marked by one-sided emphasis on psychodynamics and social issues, or what could be called "brainless" psychiatry on account of its relative neglect of cerebral processes, we are witnessing an opposite trend towards extreme biologism or "mindless" psychiatry. The pendulum has swung periodically from one to the other of these reductionistic positions throughout the history of psych...

Are volatile anesthetics neuroprotective or neurotoxic?

Volatile anesthetics are one class of the most commonly used drugs. However, the mechanisms for these drugs to induce anesthesia are not fully understood and have been under intensive investigation. Two other effects of these anesthetics on the central nervous system, volatile anesthetics-induced neuroprotection and neurotoxicity, currently are hot research fields. Although data from animal stu...

volatile anesthetics in ischemic liver injury: enemy or friend?

Significance Test, Confidence Interval, Both or Neither?

It is reasonably well-known that you can usually get a significance test "for free" by constructing a confidence interval around an obtained statistic and seeing whether or not the corresponding hypothesized parameter is "captured" by the interval. If it isn't inside the 95% confidence interval, for example, reject it at the .05 significance level and conclude that the sample finding is statist...