Behavioral and autonomic dynamics during propofol-induced unconsciousness

During general anesthesia, both behavioral and autonomic changes are caused by
the administration of anesthetics such as propofol. Propofol produces
unconsciousness by creating highly structured oscillations in brain circuits.
The anesthetic also has autonomic effects due to its actions as a vasodilator
and myocardial depressant. Understanding how autonomic dynamics change in
relation to propofol-induced unconsciousness is an important scientific and
clinical question since anesthesiologists often infer changes in level of
unconsciousness from changes in autonomic dynamics.

Therefore, we present a dataset combining physiology-based indices for heart
rate variability and electrodermal activity with a robust statistical tool to
compare behavioral and multimodal autonomic changes before, during, and after
propofol-induced unconsciousness. This dataset was recorded from nine healthy
volunteers during computer-controlled administration of propofol.