Effect of Dopamine on Cerebral Autoregulation in Neonates

Introduction: Cerebral autoregulation (CA) is the conservation of cerebral blood flow despite changes in mean arterial blood pressure (MAP). In neonates, the correlation of MAP and cerebral saturations (rScO2) can be used as a surrogate marker of CA with correlation coefficient (r) values of greater than 0.3- 0.5 considered impaired. Impaired CA is associated with periventricular-intraventricular hemorrhage (PIVH), increased mortality, and neurocognitive delays. Neonates who require vasopressor therapy for hypotension may have fluctuations in MAP and the effect of this …