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Brain Networks and Consciousness

Completed
Conditions
Loss of Consciousness
Parkinson Disease
Essential Tremor
Anesthesia
Interventions
Registration Number
NCT04502550
Lead Sponsor
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Brief Summary

General anesthesia (GA) is a medically induced state of unresponsiveness and unconsciousness, which millions of people experience every year. Despite its ubiquity, a clear and consistent picture of the brain circuits mediating consciousness and responsiveness has not emerged. Studies to date are limited by lack of direct recordings in human brain during medically induced anesthesia. Our overall hypothesis is that the current model of consciousness, originally proposed to model disorders and recovery of consciousness after brain injury, can be generalized to understand mechanisms of consciousness more broadly. This will be studied through three specific aims. The first is to evaluate the difference in anesthesia sensitivity in patients with and without underlying basal ganglia pathology. Second is to correlate changes in brain circuitry with induction and emergence from anesthesia. The third aim is to evaluate the effects of targeted deep brain stimulation on anesthesia induced loss and recovery of consciousness. This study focuses on experimentally studying these related brain circuits by taking advantage of pathological differences in movement disorder patient populations undergoing deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery. DBS is a neurosurgical procedure that is used as treatment for movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and essential tremor, and provides a mechanism to acquire brain activity recordings in subcortical structures. This study will provide important insight by using human data to shed light on the generalizability of the current model of consciousness. The subject's surgery for DBS will be prolonged by up to 40 minutes in order to record the participant's brain activity and their responses to verbal and auditory stimuli.

Detailed Description

Not available

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
COMPLETED
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
63
Inclusion Criteria
  • Willingness and ability to cooperate during conscious operative procedure for up to 40 minutes
  • Clinical diagnosis of Parkinson's disease or essential tremor
  • Preoperative MRI without evidence of cortical or subdural adhesions or vascular abnormalities
Exclusion Criteria
  • Patients with recent use (within one week) of anticoagulant or antiplatelet agent use
  • Neurocognitive testing indicating amnestic cognitive deficits
  • History of intolerance of propofol or medical indications to use an anesthetic other than propofol

Study & Design

Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Study Design
Not specified
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Parkinson's Disease patients with DBS, Gpe stimulationPropofolThis cohort will serve as as the observed group, displaying basal ganglia pathology. A syringe pump controlled by Stanpump implementing the Eleveld Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) model for propofol will be used as a targeted controlled infusion (TCI) system to achieve plasma target propofol concentrations. Target effect-site concentration of propofol will be started at 1.4 μg/mL and will be increased by 0.3 μg/mL with reassessment until endpoints are achieved. Participants will be stimulated at the Gpe via DBS leads during propofol induced loss of consciousness.
Parkinson's Disease patients undergoing DBS surgery, no stimulationPropofolA syringe pump controlled by Stanpump implementing the Eleveld Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) model for propofol will be used as a targeted controlled infusion (TCI) system to achieve plasma target propofol concentrations. Target effect-site concentration of propofol will be started at 1.4 μg/mL and will be increased by 0.3 μg/mL with reassessment until endpoints are achieved. Participants will not receive any stimulation via DBS leads, and cortical activity will be recorded via ECoG during propofol induced loss of consciousness.
Essential Tremor patients with DBSPropofolThis cohort will serve as a control group (no basal ganglia pathology). A syringe pump controlled by Stanpump implementing the Eleveld Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) model for propofol will be used as a TCI system to achieve plasma target propofol concentrations. Target effect-site concentration of propofol will be started at 1.4 μg/mL and will be increased by 0.3 μg/mL with reassessment until endpoints are achieved. Experiments will be completed with DBS off.
Parkinson's Disease patients with DBS, Gpi stimulationPropofolThis cohort will serve as as the observed group, displaying basal ganglia pathology. A syringe pump controlled by Stanpump implementing the Eleveld Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) model for propofol will be used as a targeted controlled infusion (TCI) system to achieve plasma target propofol concentrations. Target effect-site concentration of propofol will be started at 1.4 μg/mL and will be increased by 0.3 μg/mL with reassessment until endpoints are achieved. Participants will be stimulated at the Gpi via DBS leads during propofol induced loss of consciousness.
Parkinson's Disease patients with DBS, no stimulationPropofolThis cohort will serve as as the observed group, displaying basal ganglia pathology. A syringe pump controlled by Stanpump implementing the Eleveld Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) model for propofol will be used as a targeted controlled infusion (TCI) system to achieve plasma target propofol concentrations. Target effect-site concentration of propofol will be started at 1.4 μg/mL and will be increased by 0.3 μg/mL with reassessment until endpoints are achieved. Experiments will be completed with DBS off.
Parkinson's Disease patients undergoing DBS surgery, Gpe stimulationPropofolA syringe pump controlled by Stanpump implementing the Eleveld Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) model for propofol will be used as a targeted controlled infusion (TCI) system to achieve plasma target propofol concentrations. Target effect-site concentration of propofol will be started at 1.4 μg/mL and will be increased by 0.3 μg/mL with reassessment until endpoints are achieved. Participants will be stimulated at the Gpe via DBS leads, and cortical activity will be recorded via ECoG during propofol induced loss of consciousness.
Parkinson's Disease patients undergoing DBS surgery, Gpi stimulationPropofolA syringe pump controlled by Stanpump implementing the Eleveld Pharmacokinetics-Pharmacodynamics (PK-PD) model for propofol will be used as a targeted controlled infusion (TCI) system to achieve plasma target propofol concentrations. Target effect-site concentration of propofol will be started at 1.4 μg/mL and will be increased by 0.3 μg/mL with reassessment until endpoints are achieved. Participants will be stimulated at the Gpi via DBS leads, and cortical activity will be recorded via ECoG during propofol induced loss of consciousness.
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Propofol dose response curvebaseline

Serum concentration of propofol throughout targeted infusion will be correlated with the patient's response to behavioral assessments in order to predict the time course of plasma and effect site concentration of propofol, establishing differential anesthetic sensitivity profiles.

Behavioral assessment of propofol induced loss / recovery of consciousness and responsivenessbaseline

For each experiment, three behavioral responses will be evaluated: (1) loss/recovery of spontaneous movement (i.e., loss and recovery of responsiveness) (2) loss/recovery of movement in response to stimuli (separately to clicks \[non-salient\] and verbal stimuli \[salient\]), and (3) loss/recovery of movement to command (verbal command with patient name with instruction to open their eyes, as proxy of loss/recovery of consciousness).

Electrocorticogram (ECoG) and pallidal Local Field Potential (LFP) recordingsbaseline

Cortical ECoG and Globus Pallidus internus / Globus Pallidus externus (GPi/GPe) LFP recordings will occur during DBS implantation surgery during both induction and emergence with target-controlled infusion of propofol changes in network parameters. Neurophysiological signals will be correlated the evolution of behavioral measures of loss of consciousness and responsiveness during propofol infusion.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Nader Pouratian

🇺🇸

Dallas, Texas, United States

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