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.