Effects of general anesthetics on excitatory and inhibitory synaptic pathways of hippocampus in vitro

We studied the effects of intravenous and volatile anesthetics on evoked-field potentials using bi- and tri-synaptic pathways of rat hippocampal slices in vitro. The results predict that three to six synapses may be involved to generate synaptic modulation with clinical concentrations of general anesthetics.