Neurobiology of Propofol Addiction and Supportive Evidence: What Is the New Development?

Abstract

Propofol is a short-acting intravenous anesthetic agent suitable for induction and maintenance of general anesthesia as well as for procedural and intensive care unit sedation. As such it has become an unparalleled anesthetic agent of choice in many institutional and office practices. However, in addition to its idealistic properties as an anesthetic agent, there is accumulating evidence suggesting its potential for abuse. Clinical and experimental evidence has revealed that not only does propofol have the potential to be abused, but also that addiction to propofol shows a high mortality rate. Based on this evidence, different researchers have shown interest in determining the probability of propofol to be an addictive agent by comparing it with other drugs of abuse and depicting a functional similitude that involves the mesocorticolimbic pathway of addiction. In light of this, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the American Society of Anesthesiologists have put forth certain safety recommendations for the use of propofol. Despite this, the abuse potential of propofol has been challenged at different levels and therefore the preeminent focus will be to further validate the linkage from medicinal and occasional use of propofol to its addiction, as well as to explore the cellular and molecular targets involved in establishing this linkage, so as to curb the harm arising out of it. This review incorporates the clinical and biomolecular evidence supporting the abuse potential of propofol and brings forth the promising targets and the foreseeable mechanism causing the propofol addiction phenotypes, which can be called upon for future developments in this field.

Propofol alleviates hypoxia-induced nerve injury in PC-12 cells by up-regulation of microRNA-153

“…Propofol is a widely used intravenous anesthetic agent with rapid onset and short recovery time [6]. It is an agonist on Gamma-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) receptors, and the tumor suppressive role of propofol as well as the carcinogenesis of propofol has been well documented [7–9].…”

Propofol Modulates Early Memory Consolidation in Humans

“…Clinically, this accounts for rapid recovery times compared to other anesthetics (10 -30 minutes). Apart from its clinical applications, propofol has increasingly been used as a recreational drug (Xiong et al, 2018). Since soybean oil is used as a solubilizer, propofol has a milk-like appearance and has thus been nicknamed the 'milk of amnesia' (Walsh, 2018).…”

Sensations of patients and their satisfaction during awake craniotomy

“…Как уже обсуждалось, его уникальные фармакологические свойства позволяют практически управляемо включать и выключать человеческое сознание без какихлибо серьезных постэффектов. Но есть небольшая, не слишком афишируемая информация, что пропофол все же обладает (в особенности если он используется в чистом виде, вне комбинации с другими препаратами) определенным циклотимическим эффектом [47][48][49].…”