Fig. 5.  Exposure to equipotent doses of desflurane, isoflurane, or sevoflurane similarly increases neocortical caspase 3 activity in neonatal mice. Box plots represent quantification of activity of the apoptotic enzyme caspase 3 in neocortical tissue using a colorimetric assay. Horizontal lines represent respective group medians; boxes, 25^th–75^thpercentile; whiskers, 10th–90th percentile; and closed circle, outlier. The 7–8-day-old mouse pups were treated for 6 h with room air (control, n = 10), 7.4% desflurane (n = 13), 1.5% isoflurane (n = 11), or 2.9% sevoflurane (n = 11). *P < 0.0005 compared with control. There were no differences among the anesthesia groups (P > 0.8), by the Kruskal–Wallis test with the Dunn test for post hoc  comparisons.