Fig. 5.
Anesthetics slow and impair propagation of cortical activity in acute thalamocortical slices. (A) Example of neocortical burst activity in a thalamocortical slice. Bursts were either induced by electrical stimuli (dotted lines) in auditory thalamus (TC) or in cortical layer 1 (L1) or arose spontaneously; they were extracellularly recorded from a linear 16 channel-array placed in layer five of neocortex. Gray traces are three representative trials; colored thick traces are averages. Note the speedy uni- or bidirectional burst propagation during control, and its impairment by a very small concentration of isoflurane. (B) Speed of burst propagation in various isoflurane concentrations, normalized to control. Each filled circle is one slice. Bu, burst; iso, isoflurane; norm, normalized to control; S, spontaneous. Modified and reproduced under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License from Hentschke et al.121