Electromyographic assessment of blink reflex throughout the transition from responsiveness to unresponsiveness during induction with propofol and remifentanil

General anesthesia is a reversible drug-induced state of altered arousal characterized by loss of responsiveness due to brainstem inactivation. Precise identification of the moment in which responsiveness is lost during the induction of general anesthesia is extremely important to provide information regarding an individual’s anesthetic requirements and help intraoperative drug titration. To characterize the transition from responsiveness to unresponsiveness more objectively, we studied neurophysiologic-derived parameters of electromyographic records of electrically evoked blink reflex as a means of identifying the precise moment of loss of responsiveness. Twenty-five patients received a slow infusion of propofol until loss of corneal reflex while successive blink reflexes were elicited and recorded every 6 s. The level of anesthesia was assessed using an adapted version of the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale. Different variables of the blink reflex components were calculated and compared to the adapted version of the Richmond Agitation-Sedation score and the estimated effect-site propofol concentration. Baselines of the blink reflex responses were similar to those in literature. After propofol infusion started, the most susceptible component of the blink reflex to propofol was R₂ (EC₅₀ = 1.358 (95% CI 1.321, 1.396) µg/mL) and the most resistant was R₁ (EC₅₀ = 3.025 (95% CI 2.960, 3.090) µg/mL). Most of the patients (24 out of 25) lost the R₁ component when they were still responsive to shaking and shouting and corneal reflex could be elicited clinically (time = 102.48 ± 33.00 s). Habituation was present in R₂ but not in R₁. The R₁ component of the blink reflex was found to have a strong correlation with the adapted version of the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale, with amplitude correlating better than areas (ρ = − 0.721 (0.123) versus ρ = − 0.688 (0.165)). We found a strong correlation between the R₁ component with the estimated propofol effect-site concentration, with amplitude correlating better than areas (ρ = − 0.838 (0.113) versus ρ = − 0.823 (0.153)) and between the clinical scale and the propofol concentration (ρ = 0.856 (0.060)). The area and amplitude of the R₁ component showed to be indicators of predicting different levels of anesthesia (P_k = 0.672 (0.183) versus P_k = 0.709 (0.134)) and these are connected to the propofol concentrations (P_k = 0.593 (0.10)). Our results suggest that electrically evoked blink reflex could be used during the induction of anesthesia as a surrogate of the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale to provide an objective endpoint as far as a − 4. At this point, at the moment of loss of R₁, the propofol infusion may be stopped, as overshooting increases slightly the effect-site concentration afterward and eventually reaching loss of responsiveness. If the desired target is not achieved, the infusion can then be resumed.