Investigation of Cerebral Motor Activity Modulations Following Median Nerve Stimulation During General Anaesthesia

Summary

Accidental Awareness during General Anesthesia (AAGA) occurs in 1-2% of high-risk practice patients and is a cause of severe psychological trauma, termed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Actually, no monitoring techniques can accurately predict or detect an AAGA. Since the first reflex for a patient during an AAGA is to move, a brain-computer interface (BCI) based on the detection of an intention of movement would be conceivable to alert the anesthetist. The investigators previously showed that median nerve stimulation (MNS) could be the keystone of a BCI specialized in the detection of movement intention. Indeed, based on these previous results, the investigators can envisage a routine system where the patient would be stimulated at the median nerve position, while a BCI device would analyze the event-related desynchronization (ERD) and event-related synchronization (ERS) modulations in the motor cortex to check whether the patient is intending to move or not. According to the investigator's knowledge, no published studies have investigated the detection of EEG patterns in relation to peripheral nerve stimulation over the sensorimotor cortex during general anesthesia. The main objective of this study is to describe the changes in terms of ERD and ERS modulations, in the EEG signal over the motor cortex, during general anesthesia with propofol, while a median nerve stimulation is performed.

STIM-MOTANA is an interventional and prospective study conducted in patients scheduled for surgery under general anesthesia, involving EEG measurements and median nerve stimulation. In this study, 30 patients will undergo surgery under total intravenous anesthesia using a propofol target-controlled infusion pump. The rest of the anesthetic protocol will be at the discretion of the anesthesiologist in charge. Changes in ERD and ERS during median nerve stimulation according to the various propofol concentrations will be continuously monitored by an EEG amplifier. Pre- and post-injection comparisons of propofol will be performed by paired series tests. After surgery, patients will have a gradual decrease of propofol at different effect-site concentrations (from 4.0 μg/ml to 2.0 μg/ml, in increments of 0.5 μg/ml).

Conditions

• Accidental Awareness During General Anesthesia

Interventions

DRUG

Propofol

STIM-MOTANA is an interventional and prospective study conducted in patients scheduled for surgery under general anesthesia, involving EEG measurements and median nerve stimulation. In this study, 30 patients will undergo surgery under total intravenous anesthesia using a propofol target-controlled infusion pump. The rest of the anesthetic protocol will be at the discretion of the anesthesiologist in charge. After surgery, patients will have a gradual decrease of propofol at different effect-site concentrations (from 4.0 μg/ml to 2.0 μg/ml, in increments of 0.5 μg/ml).

DEVICE

Median nerve stimulation

The right-hand median nerve will be stimulated in the same way as for measurement with a conduction velocity or for an evoked potential. Two stimulation electrodes will be placed on the right-hand wrist according to the standards.The stimulation is transcutaneous and painless using the specific Micromed device Sd Ltm Stim Energy (Micromed, Mˆacon, France). The stimulus intensity will range between 3 and 14 mA. The stimulation duration will be 100 ms with a frequency of 0.1 Hz.

DEVICE

EEG measurements

Changes in ERD and ERS patterns during median nerve stimulation according to the various propofol concentrations will be continuously monitored by an EEG amplifier. EEG signals will be acquired using the OpenViBE platform with a Biosemi Active Two 64-channel EEG system, arranged in the Biosemi's ABC system covering the entire scalp at 2048 Hz. Among all recorded sites, some of the electrodes will be localized around the primary motor cortex, the motor cortex, the somatosensory cortex, and the occipital cortex.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Brugmann University Hospital

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Denis Schmartz, MD · CHU Brugmann

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

PREVENTION

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

81 Years

Sex

MALE

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2023-01-15

Primary Completion

2026-12-31

Completion

2026-12-31

Countries

• Belgium

Study Locations