Consideration of the effect of the anesthesia in the thalamocortical assemblies

Despite intensive research efforts, the effects of anesthesia on brain physiology and function have not been satisfactorily explained yet. Nevertheless, from what has been discovered up to now, we can attribute the effect of the anesthetics to changes in calcium(Ca2+) channels and in Gamma-aminobutyric acid type A(GABAA) synaptic receptors. In this paper, we investigate through simulations the consequences of such changes in a Hodgkin-Huxley-based model of thalamocortical assemblies.