High-dose Propofol Anesthesia Reduces the Occurrence of Postoperative Cognitive Dysfunction via Maintaining Cytoskeleton.

• Surgery under high-dose propofol anesthesia could reduce memory loss compared to low-dose propofol anesthesia. • Surgery under low-dose propofol anesthesia could depolymerize actin cytoskeleton in hippocampus. • Surgery under high-dose propofol anesthesia could maintain the polymerization of actin in hippocampus. Postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD) is a common postoperative complication observed in patients following. Here we tested the molecular mechanisms of memory loss in hippocampus of rat POCD model. We found that high-dose propofol anesthesia significantly alleviated spatial memory loss. The proteomes and transcriptomes in hippocampus showed that hippocampal cytoskeleton related pathways were abnormal in low group while not in high group. The protein assays confirmed that hippocampal actin cytoskeleton was depolymerized in low group while maintained in high group. This study confirms that high-dose propofol anesthesia could mitigate the development of POCD and provides evidences for actin cytoskeleton associated with this syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]