Sedatives' Effects on Neurological Function in Patients With Eloquent Area Glioma

Sedation in the operating room, the Post Anesthesia Care Unit and the Intensive Care Unit is common and often necessary for patients with intracranial brain tumor. Repeated neurological function assessments is needed in those locations, especially in patients with tumors in or near eloquent regions, this is to monitor their neurologic performance to determine if there are alterations that require treatment. Some slowly infiltrative low-grade gliomas near eloquent regions do not show any detectable neurologic deficits, perhaps from reorganization, but with sedation by some sedatives such as benzodiazepine midazolam and anesthetic hypnotic propofol, the disease may seem much worse resulting in inappropriately aggressive treatment. This may be especially problematic in patients undergoing awake craniotomy for tumors in eloquent regions.

This is a single-center perspective study. Patients will be mildly sedated to keep them responsive and cooperative. Motor and sensory function will be evaluated before and after mild sedation. Specific benzodiazepine antagonist will be used if sedated by midazolam.

The purpose of this study is to observe if commonly used benzodiazepine midazolam exacerbates or unmasks motor and sensory function in patients with intracranial eloquent area gliomas.

Hypothesis:

mild sedation can unmasks or exacerbate motor and sensory deficits in patients with eloquent area glioma but not in non-neurosurgical patients/healthy volunteers. If the neurologic deficits induced by benzodiazepine agonist, then can be reversed by flumazenil.