Learning disorders related to exposure to general anesthetic in children

Background: There are many animal studies demonstrating increased neuroapoptose in the first periods of development, especially in stronger neural development regions. In young cobais neuroapoptose also noted, however, more localized area as the dentate nucleus and the olfactory bulb of the brain regions that show sinaptogense even in adulthood and is responsible for learning. Objective: To describe the current studies about learning disabilities and cognitive impairment related to exposure to general anesthetics in children.  Method: This is a systematic review, performed from the search in the PubMed database using the keywords "general anesthetics," "neurotoxicity", "children", "young child" and "pediatric" with the criterion inclusion, published in the last five years, in English and related exposure to anesthetics in human children . Were excluded from the articles concerning the studies in experimental animals or that they focus on side effects of other substances on the central nervous system, such as alcohol.    Results: So were found 108 articles. All were analyzed by two researchers individually. Only 27 met the inclusion criteria. Discussion: In recent years, several studies have been conducted addressing neurotoxicity triggered by general anesthetics. The vast majority using experimental animals or stem cells. Suggest that both inhaled anesthetics such as venous are able to trigger the activation neuroapoptose with release of caspase 3:09, especially in phases of high growth and neural development. There is a strong association between duration of anesthesia and multiple exposures with learning disabilities and behavior. Conclusion: Currently, you can not say that the damage caused by agents in animals can be replicated humans. However, the severity of outcomes, the FDA recommends avoiding anesthesia and surgery in children under three years, at least those that do not have an emergency basis.