BACKGROUNDMounting evidence from animal studies shows that anesthetic exposure in early life leads to apoptosis in the developing nervous system. This loss of neurons has functional consequences in adulthood. Clinical retrospective reviews have suggested that multiple anesthetic exposures in early childhood are associated with learning disabilities later in life as well. Despite much concern about this phenomenon, little is known about the mechanism by which anesthetics initiate neuronal cell death. Caenorhabditis elegans, a powerful genetic animal model, with precisely characterized neural development and cell death pathways, affords an excellent opportunity to study anesthetic-induced neurotoxicity. We hypothesized that exposing the nematode to volatile anesthetics early in life would induce neuron cell death, producing a behavioral defect that would be manifested in adulthood.
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