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Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry 1982;6(2):167-174
1. Effects of inhaling nitrous oxide in oxygen were observed in subjects undergoing noxious dental (N=10) or nonnoxious auditory (N=10) stimulation. Evoked potentials (EPs), 100-500 msec poststimulus, were recorded at vertex, and peak-to-peak amplitudes as well as peak latencies were quantified. 2. Both dental and auditory EPs were reduced by 33% nitrous oxide in oxygen concentration and a dose-related effect was seen in the auditory modality when the concentration was increased to 50%. 3. These observations demonstrate that nitrous oxide inhalation has a broad impact on neurophysiological function in addition to behaviorally determined analgesia.