Can lidocaine… mess up your brain?!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Lidocaine is a commonly used local anesthetic. BUT elderly patients who typically undergo more surgeries have long lasting memory issues after. Coincidence?
Xiaohui Chen and colleagues from Fujian Medical University investigated!
The team injected lidocaine into elderly mice, either once OR multiple times. Treated mice needed to remember and swim to the location of an underwater platform in a pool.
And? Mice with more lidocaine exposure took TWICE as long to find the platform!
The team identified an inflammatory response in the memory center of mouse brains! Reducing this inflammation IMPROVED memory back to near baseline levels!
Huh. Just like that old Johnny Cash song – the “Lidocaine Blues!”
Reference: Chen, X., Wan, H., Huang, Y., Chen, A., Wu, X., Guo, Y., Wei, J., Chen, P., Jiang, J., & Zheng, X. (2025). Repeated lidocaine exposure induces synaptic and cognitive impairment in aged mice by activating microglia and neurotoxic A1 astrocytes. iScience, 28(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112041