

Effect of General Anesthesia in Infancy on Long-Term Recognition Memory - givan
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/vaop/naam/abs/npp2014134a.html

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jawns
My son, who's now 2 1/2, has had endoscopies every six months starting from
when he was 9 months old. (He suffers from eosinophilic esophagitis, and the
only way to accurately determine his eosinophil levels is to biopsy tissue
from the esophagus.)

So, this study obviously worries me a great deal. It's definitely something
I'll want to ask his doctors about ... but I have a feeling that the answer
will be that it's a downside we'll have to accept.

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mankyd
Interesting to me on a personal level. I have a recently born son who
underwent surgery at 2 months. The procedure itself is incredibly simple and
safe; the anesthesia was the part that actually concerned us the most, (and my
father is a trained anesthesiologist to boot).

There was a non-surgical alternative to what we did, but it was recommended
against. It has a much lower success rate and is the difference between a day
in the hospital and several months of carefully measured feeding.

Even equipped with this knowledge, I suspect that I would make the same
decision. It is more important to me that my son be physically healthy and
thriving than anything. I am curious if others would make the decision
differently.

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SkyMarshal
Without knowing any of the details,

 _> several months of carefully measured feeding._

That doesn't sound that bad, at least as a temporary solution to an otherwise
permanent problem?

I've been through this before - any time a doc recommends surgery it's worth
getting second and third opinions. Sometimes the first one is that guy with
the hammer to whom every problem looks like a nail.

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Iftheshoefits
That doesn't sound bad when taken by itself. Infants, however, are interesting
things. They may be sponges, but if I've learned anything in the last couple
of years since my wife and I had our first child, it's that their development
occurs in weird, non-linear ways, and requires a lot of effort and practice on
their part. Stressing them out severly can (and does) impair development.

Aside from that, I suspect I know what condition the original commenter is
talking about--or at least my wife and I had a child who, at roughly 5 weeks,
was given an almost identical choice for a condition he had. This particular
condition is such that food either cannot pass out of the stomach into the
intestine, or can only do so in quantities insufficient to provide adequate
nutrition. It comes with a variety of nasty side effects, such as severe
projectile vomiting when the stomach-digested food accumulates (hence the
"carefully measured feedings") that, long term, will also damage the
esophagus. I can only speculate about the kinds of developmental problems an
infant may incur when he is stressed out over basic sustenance for the first
weeks or months of key developmental milestones, but to me the choice was a
no-brainer for the surgical option. I would do it again, even given this
study, without hesitation.

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ars
Maybe it's time to stop causing amnesia along with unconsciousness. They do
that to keep people from having traumatic memories in case they wake up, but
it's starting to seem like it causes more harm than good.

See: [http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/nightmares-after-
th...](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/22/nightmares-after-the-i-c-u/)

~~~
refurb
Unconsciousness and retrograde amnesia are two different things. If you're
unconscious you're not going to have any memories. There are procedures where
you are sedated and those are the ones they try to induce amnesia about the
event.

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jcr
From the abstract, it looks like an interesting paper to read but
unfortunately, it's stuck behind a paywall and my searches have been unable to
find a freely available copy.

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vixin
Your taxes (if US citizen) paid for the research and it was peer reviewed for
free by (I believe) academics in the public service but we all know the
immense burden and expense involved in typesetting and publishing the results
in print or on the internet. At least that is how it appears. The solution to
this scandal lies with the researchers themselves.

The price of information
[http://www.economist.com/node/21545974](http://www.economist.com/node/21545974)

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cscurmudgeon
Where does it say that this research project was funded by the govt.? But I
agree, important research, even if privately funded, ought to be freely
available.

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ihnorton
It's a safe assumption for essentially all biomedical research, but
specifically, the senior author's website:

[http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Labs/Ghetti/PWT/index.cfm?Sect...](http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Labs/Ghetti/PWT/index.cfm?Section=20)

~~~
cscurmudgeon
It is a shame that life saving research sponsored by the govt. is locked down.

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ndespres
Interesting hypothesis. I've been lamenting, especially lately, my own memory
problems identifying faces, scents, and sounds. My first surgery which had me
placed under general anesthesia was at 1 yr.

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wes-exp
I believe there are similar issues with children and x-rays to the head/brain.

