Childhood Exposure to General Anesthesia For Surgery: Identification of a Subtle Post-Operative Cognitive Phenotype.
Jean-Philippe Salaün, Iris Menu, Tamara Aguiar, Lorna Le Stanc, Denis Vivien, Nicolas PoirelBackground:
Early-life exposure to general anesthesia has not been consistently associated with overall cognitive deficits, yet its impact on executive functions and visuo-spatial processing remains unclear. The primary objective was to assess executive function performance, according to general anesthesia exposure for surgery. The secondary objectives were to explore distinct cognitive profiles and their associated factors, as well as to examine visuo-spatial attention as a complementary domain.
Methods:
In this ambidirectional cohort study, 77 children aged 9-11 years, with or without prior general anesthesia exposure for surgery, completed a cognitive battery yielding eight cognitive measures assessing inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, working memory, and visuo-spatial attention. Measures were analyzed using a linear mixed-effects model. Exploratory latent profile analysis was used to identify cognitive performance profiles.
Results:
No significant main effect of general anesthesia exposure for surgery was observed (χ²(1) =.01,
Conclusions:
Early childhood exposure to general anesthesia was not associated with reduced overall executive function. However, a potential post-operative cognitive phenotype is suggested by a reduced likelihood to belong to an efficient executive control profile with greater visuo-spatial global-local precedence.