The Role of Neuroactive Steroids in Analgesia and Anesthesia: An Interesting Comeback?

Abstract

Published evidence over the past few decades suggests that general anesthetics could be neurotoxins especially when administered at the extremes of age. The reported pathology is not only at the morphological level when examined in very young and aged brains, given that, importantly, newly developing evidence suggests a variety of behavioral impairments. Since anesthesia is unavoidable in certain clinical settings, we should consider the development of new anesthetics. A promising and safe solution could be a new family of anesthetics referred to as neuroactive steroids. In this review, we summarize the currently available evidence regarding their anesthetic and analgesic properties.

Keywords

• developmental neurotoxicity
• young brain
• old brain
• attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
• autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
• alphaxalone