Anesthetic agents provide patient comfort and optimize conditions for surgical and procedural interventions. These agents have been shown to modulate autophagy, which is a cellular mechanism that maintains tissue homeostasis by degrading and recycling excess, aged, or dysfunctional proteins. However, it is not always clear if upregulated autophagy is beneficial or harmful. This review assesses the anesthetic effects on autophagy. In the vast majority of studies, anesthetic modulation of autophagy is beneficial for cell survival.
Keywords: apoptosis; autophagy; intravenous anesthetics; ischemic preconditioning; myocardium; neuroprotection; signaling molecules; volatile anesthetics.