Comparative anesthesia
Current work extends the same measurements across compounds and doses to identify shared and drug-specific brain-wide changes.
PhD candidateCambridge, MA
03
Pharmacology · Whole-brain dynamics · Recovery
General anesthesia across the whole brain
Whole-brain activity through anesthetic induction and recovery.
We study the mechanisms by which state-of-the-art anesthetics and novel compounds induce anesthesia.
© Marc Duque Ramírez
What we did
A controlled, reversible transition measured across the brain.
We are building region-level and single-cell calcium-dynamics maps across anesthetics to identify the circuit-level mechanisms that govern induction, maintenance, and emergence. By comparing compounds with established targets—including GABAA receptor modulators and NMDA receptor antagonists—with novel anesthetics whose molecular targets remain unknown, we aim to distinguish shared brain-wide dynamics from mechanism-specific effects.
To verify loss of nociceptive responsiveness, we measure whole-brain responses following TRPA1 activation. The same setup simultaneously tracks heart rate and other physiological parameters, allowing us to assess anesthetic side effects and safety.
© Marc Duque Ramírez
Current directions
Methods
Whole-brain light-sheet imagingSingle-cell analysisPharmacologyBehaviorPhysiologyControlled drug deliveryNext project