Electroencephalogram Similarity Analysis Using Temporal and Spectral Dynamics Analysis for Propofol and Desflurane Induced Unconsciousness

Important information about the state dynamics of the brain during anesthesia is unraveled by Electroencephalogram (EEG) approaches. Patterns that are observed through EEG related to neural circuit mechanism under different molecular targets dependent anesthetics have recently attracted much attention. Propofol, a Gamma-amino butyric acid, is known with evidently increasing alpha oscillation. Desflurane shares the same receptor action and should be similar to propofol. To explore their dynamics, EEG under routine surgery level anesthetic depth is analyzed using multitaper spectral method from two groups: propofol (n = 28) and desflurane (n = 23). The time-varying spectrum comparison was undertaken to characterize their properties. Results show that both of the agents are dominated by slow and alpha waves. Especially, for increased alpha band feature, propofol unconsciousness shows maximum power at about 10 Hz (mean ± SD; frequency: 10.2 ± 1.4 Hz; peak power, −14.0 ± 1.6 dB), while it is approximate about 8 Hz (mean ± SD; frequency: 8.3 ± 1.3 Hz; peak power, −13.8 ± 1.6 dB) for desflurane with significantly lower frequency-resolved spectra for this band. In addition, the mean power of propofol is much higher from alpha to gamma band, including slow oscillation than that of desflurane. The patterns might give us an EEG biomarker for specific anesthetic. This study suggests that both of the anesthetics exhibit similar spectral dynamics, which could provide insight into some common neural circuit mechanism. However, differences between them also indicate their uniqueness where relevant.