The changes of cerebral hemodynamics during ketamine induced anesthesia in a rat model

Current electroencephalogram (EEG) based-consciousness monitoring technique is vulnerable to specific clinical conditions (eg, epilepsy and dementia). However, hemodynamics is the most fundamental and well-preserved parameter to evaluate, even under severe clinical situations. In this study, we applied near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) system to monitor hemodynamic change during ketamine-induced anesthesia to find its correlation with the level of consciousness. Oxy-hemoglobin (OHb) and deoxy-hemoglobin concentration levels were continuously acquired throughout the experiment, and the reflectance ratio between 730 and 850 nm was calculated to quantify the hemodynamic changes. The results showed double peaks of OHb concentration change during ketamine anesthesia, which seems to be closely related to the consciousness state of the rat. This finding suggests the possibility of NIRS based-hemodynamic monitoring as a supplementary parameter for consciousness monitoring, compensating drawbacks of EEG signal based monitoring.