Decreased Cerebral Blood Flow in Mesial Thalamus and Precuneus/PCC during Midazolam Induced Sedation Assessed with ASL

  • Peipeng Liang
  • Yachao Xu
  • Fei Lan
  • Daqing Ma
  • Kuncheng Li
Original Article
First Online:
  • 31 Downloads

Abstract

While some previous work suggests that midazolam-induced light sedation results from the functional disconnection within resting state network, little is known about the underlying alterations of cerebral blood flow (CBF) associated with its effects. A randomized, double-blind, within-subject, cross-over design was adopted, while 12 healthy young volunteers were scanned with arterial spin-labeling (ASL) perfusion MRI both before and after an injection of either saline or midazolam. The contrast of MRI signal before and after midazolam administration revealed the CBF decrease in the bilateral mesial thalamus and precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). These effects were confirmed after controlling for any effect of injection as well as head motions. These findings provide new evidences that midazolam-induced light sedation is related to the disruption of cortical functional integration, and have new implications to the neural basis of consciousness.

Keywords

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) Midazolam Sedation 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61473196) and Beijing Talents foundation (2016000021223TD07). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. We’d like to thank Dr. Xiaoxuan He in assisting the data analysis.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of Interest

All authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Radiology, Xuanwu HospitalCapital Medical UniversityBeijingChina
  2. 2.Beijing Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Brain InformaticsBeijingChina
  3. 3.Department of Anesthesiology, Xuanwu HospitalCapital Medical UniversityBeijingChina
  4. 4.Anaesthetcis, Pain Medicine and Intensive Care, Department of Surgery & Cancer, Imperial College LondonChelsea & Westminster HospitalLondonUK

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