The sensory thalamus and cerebral motor cortex are affected concurrently during induction of anesthesia with propofol: a case series with intracranial electroencephalogram recordings.

Purpose Brain imaging studies suggest that loss of consciousness induced by general anesthetics is associated with impairment of thalamic function. There is, however, limited information on the time course of these changes. We recently obtained intracranial electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings from the ventroposterolateral (VPL) nucleus of the thalamus and from the motor cortex during induction of anesthesia in three patients to study the time course of the alterations of cortical and thalamic function.