The Relationship Between Different Doses of Propofol and the Occurrence of Dreams in Short Surgery Under General Anesthesia

Dreams are a remarkable experiment in psychology and neuroscience, conducted every night in every sleeping person. 74% of awakenings from REM sleep resulted in recall of a dream, as compared with only 9% of awakenings from NREM sleep. The association between dreaming and REM sleep was subsequently replicated by many other investigators; typically, around 80% of REM awakenings yield dreams. It became clear over time that there is a good deal of mental activity that occurs during NREM sleep. Typically, it is more thought like, fragmentary, and related to daily concerns than the vivid, hallucinatory, predominantly visual narratives that are most commonly reported from REM sleep. But even this distinction appears not to be absolute. There is now wide acceptance of the view that some dreaming that is indistinguishable from REM sleep dreaming occurs in NREM sleep, most frequently in the sleep-onset period. General anesthesia causes a drug-induced state of unconsciousness and is a non-physiological process that is similar to natural sleep. Patients receiving propofol for maintenance of general anesthesia often report higher incidences of dreaming than patients maintained with volatile anesthetics. One explanation is that propofol and volatile anesthetic have different pharmacological effects in the central nervous system. An alternative explanation is that propofol is associated with more rapid emergence from anesthesia than the older volatile anesthetics, allowing patients to report their dreams before they are forgotten. In order to further verify the hypothesis, the investigators choose gynecological general anesthesia to observe whether the generation of dreams is related to the dose of general anesthesia maintenance .

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: General Anesthesia; Dreaming
• Intervention / Treatment: Drug: Propofol

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 300
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• China
  • Liaoning
    • Shenyang, Liaoning, China, 110004
      • Shengjing Hospital

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 70 years (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• between 18 and 70 years
• with an ASA physical status of I or II

Exclusion Criteria:

• presence of sleep disorders
• pain syndrome
• cardiovascular disease
• sleep apnea syndrome
• psychosis
• history of opioid usage
• history of abnormal operation or anesthesia recovery
• unwillingness to provide informed consent
• a patient with a language communication disorder

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: QUADRUPLE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Low maintenance dose propofol group; The low maintenance dose propofol group was maintained at 4-6 mg/kg/h	Drug: Propofol; The low maintenance dose propofol group was maintained at 4-6 mg/kg/h ；and The high maintenance dose propofol group was maintained at 8-12 mg/kg/h
EXPERIMENTAL: High maintenance dose propofol group; The high maintenance dose propofol group was maintained at 8-12 mg/kg/h	Drug: Propofol; The low maintenance dose propofol group was maintained at 4-6 mg/kg/h ；and The high maintenance dose propofol group was maintained at 8-12 mg/kg/h

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Mean blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)	record mean blood pressure during the surgery	5 minutes after entering the operation room
Mean blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)	record mean blood pressure during the surgery	Anesthesia induction to fall asleep
Mean blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)	record mean blood pressure during the surgery	at the end of surgery
Mean blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)	record mean blood pressure during the surgery	Upon awakening from anesthesia
Mean blood pressure (systolic and diastolic)	record mean blood pressure during the surgery	leaving the operation room
heart rate	record heart rate during the surgery	entering the operation room
heart rate	record heart rate during the surgery	Anesthesia induction to fall asleep
heart rate	record heart rate during the surgery	at the end of surgery
heart rate	record heart rate during the surgery	Upon awakening from anesthesia
heart rate	record heart rate during the surgery	leaving the operation room
BIS	record BIS during the surgery	entering the operation room
BIS	record BIS during the surgery	Anesthesia induction to fall asleep
BIS	record BIS during the surgery	at the end of surgery
BIS	record BIS during the surgery	Upon awakening from anesthesia
BIS	record BIS during the surgery	leaving the operation room
Total dose of propofol	record total dose of propofol	at the end of surgery
Dream	Dreaming during anesthesia was defined as any experience that was described by the patient as dreaming and was thought by the patient to have occurred between the induction of anesthesia and the first moment of consciousness after anesthesia.27 Awareness was defined as postoperative recall of intraoperative events. All patients who reported dreaming were considered to be "dreamers" for the purpose of the analyses, whether or not they could remember the narrative of the dream. However, only dreaming reports where the narrative was remembered were classified using five-point Likert scales as follows. Emotional content (1 very negative; 5 very positive) ● Memorability (1 can't remember narrative of dream; 5 most memorable ever) ● Visual vividness (1 not at all vivid; 5 most vivid ever) ● Amount of sound (1 no sound; 5 most sound ever)	at the end of surgery

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Postoperative adverse effects	record postoperative adverse effects	24 hours after surgery

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Shengjing Hospital
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: junchao zhu, Shengjing Hospital

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): November 30, 2021
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): May 10, 2022
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): May 10, 2022

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: November 25, 2021
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 29, 2021
• First Posted (ACTUAL): December 30, 2021

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): June 2, 2022
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 1, 2022
• Last Verified: June 1, 2022

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Physiological Effects of Drugs; Central Nervous System Depressants; Anesthetics, Intravenous; Anesthetics, General; Anesthetics; Hypnotics and Sedatives; Propofol
• Other Study ID Numbers: Propofol and dream

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No