Detection of Motor Cerebral Activity After Median Nerve Stimulation During General Anesthesia (STIM-MOTANA): Protocol for a Prospective Interventional Study

BACKGROUND: Accidental awareness during general anesthesia (AAGA) is defined as an unexpected awareness of the patient during general anesthesia. This phenomenon occurs in 1%-2% of high-risk practice patients and can cause physical suffering and psychological after-effects, called posttraumatic stress disorder. In fact, no monitoring techniques are satisfactory enough to effectively prevent AAGA; therefore, new alternatives are needed. Because the first reflex for a patient during an AAGA is to move, but cannot do so because of the neuromuscular blockers, we believe that it is possible to design a brain-computer interface (BCI) based on the detection of movement intention to warn the anesthetist. To do this, we propose to describe and detect the changes in terms of motor cortex oscillations during general anesthesia with propofol, while a median nerve stimulation is performed. We believe that our results could enable the design of a BCI based on median nerve stimulation, which could prevent AAGA. OBJECTIVE: To our knowledge, no published studies have investigated the detection of electroencephalographic (EEG) patterns in relation to peripheral nerve stimulation over the sensorimotor cortex during general anesthesia. The main objective of this study is to describe the changes in terms of event-related desynchronization and event-related synchronization modulations, in the EEG signal over the motor cortex during general anesthesia with propofol while a median nerve stimulation is performed. METHODS: STIM-MOTANA is an interventional and prospective study conducted with patients scheduled for surgery under general anesthesia, involving EEG measurements and median nerve stimulation at two different times: (1) when the patient is awake before surgery (2) and under general anesthesia. A total of 30 patients will receive surgery under complete intravenous anesthesia with a target-controlled infusion pump of propofol. RESULTS: The changes in event-related desynchronization and event-related synchronization during median nerve stimulation according to the various propofol concentrations for 30 patients will be analyzed. In addition, we will apply 4 different offline machine learning algorithms to detect the median nerve stimulation at the cerebral level. Recruitment began in December 2022. Data collection is expected to conclude in June 2024. CONCLUSIONS: STIM-MOTANA will be the first protocol to investigate median nerve stimulation cerebral motor effect during general anesthesia for the detection of intraoperative awareness. Based on strong practical and theoretical scientific reasoning from our previous studies, our innovative median nerve stimulation–based BCI would provide a way to detect intraoperative awareness during general anesthesia. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT05272202; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05272202 INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): PRR1-10.2196/43870