Title:Identifying c-fos Expression as a Strategy to Investigate the Actions of
General Anesthetics on the Central Nervous System
Volume: 20
Issue: 1
Author(s): Donghang Zhang , Jin Liu , Tao Zhu and Cheng Zhou*
Affiliation:
- Laboratory of
Anesthesia and Critical Care Medicine, National-Local Joint Engineering Research Centre of Translational Medicine of
Anesthesiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China
Keywords:
General anesthetics, c-fos, neural nuclei/circuits, unconsciousness, anesthesia emergence, analgesia.
Abstract: Although general anesthetics have been used in the clinic for more than 170 years, the
ways in which they induce amnesia, unconsciousness, analgesia, and immobility remain elusive.
Modulations of various neural nuclei and circuits are involved in the actions of general anesthetics.
The expression of the immediate-early gene c-fos and its nuclear product, c-fos protein, can be induced
by neuronal depolarization; therefore, c-fos staining is commonly used to identify the activated
neurons during sleep and/or wakefulness, as well as in various physiological conditions in the
central nervous system. Identifying c-fos expression is also a direct and convenient method to explore
the effects of general anesthetics on the activity of neural nuclei and circuits. Using c-fos
staining, general anesthetics have been found to interact with sleep- and wakefulness-promoting systems
throughout the brain, which may explain their ability to induce unconsciousness and emergence
from general anesthesia. This review summarizes the actions of general anesthetics on neural
nuclei and circuits based on a c-fos expression.