Cortical transcriptomic changes in the newborn rat brain after exposure to surgery and anesthesia in the third trimester

We report changes in the cortical transcriptome of newborn rat pups after exposure to anesthesia and surgery in the third trimester using unbiased RNA-seq analysis. Overall design: We performed RNA-seq analysis to examine differential gene expression in the cortex of newborn pups (day 0) after in utero exposure to anesthesia and subcutaneous pump implantation surgery on embryonic day 18 (n = 2 pups each of either sex from 3 independent dams) or no treatment (2 pups each of either sex from 3 independent dams). With an FDR adjusted p < 0.05, none of the genes were determined to be significantly differentially expressed in the newborn brain after exposure to anesthesia and surgery in the third trimester.