Researchers at McGill University and the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) have performed the world's first totally automated administration of an anesthetic. Nicknamed "McSleepy," the new system developed by the researchers administers drugs for general anesthesia and monitors their separate effects completely automatically, with no manual intervention.
"We have been working on closed-loop systems, where drugs are administered, their effects continuously monitored, and the doses are adjusted accordingly, for the last 5 years," said Dr. Thomas M. Hemmerling of McGill's Department of Anesthesia and the Montreal General Hospital, who heads ITAG (Intelligent Technology in Anesthesia research group), a team of anesthesiologists, biomedical scientists and engineers. "Think of "McSleepy" as a sort of humanoid anesthesiologist that thinks like an anesthesiologist, analyses biological information and constantly adapts its own behavior, even recognizing monitoring malfunction."