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Review
. 2023 Nov 15;13(11):1654.
doi: 10.3390/biom13111654.

The Role of Neuroactive Steroids in Analgesia and Anesthesia: An Interesting Comeback?

Vesna Jevtovic-Todorovic  1 , Slobodan M Todorovic  1
Affiliations
Review

The Role of Neuroactive Steroids in Analgesia and Anesthesia: An Interesting Comeback?

Vesna Jevtovic-Todorovic et al. Biomolecules. .

Abstract

Published evidence over the past few decades suggests that general anesthetics could be neurotoxins especially when administered at the extremes of age. The reported pathology is not only at the morphological level when examined in very young and aged brains, given that, importantly, newly developing evidence suggests a variety of behavioral impairments. Since anesthesia is unavoidable in certain clinical settings, we should consider the development of new anesthetics. A promising and safe solution could be a new family of anesthetics referred to as neuroactive steroids. In this review, we summarize the currently available evidence regarding their anesthetic and analgesic properties.

Keywords: alphaxalone; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); autism spectrum disorder (ASD); developmental neurotoxicity; neuroapoptosis; old brain; pain post-surgery; young brain.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Structures of neuroactive steroids used in our studies.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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