The assessment of depth of anaesthesia in animals and man

Abstract

The assessment of the depth of anaesthesia in man has received much attention in recent years, following a number of reports of people being aware during surgery. A range of different measures have been suggested for determining the adequacy of anaesthesia in man, but such a critical assessment is rarely applied to laboratory animals. This article describes the methods used to assess anaesthetic depth in both man and animals, and compares the relative states of knowledge about anaesthetic depth in animals and man.