DISCUSSION
overdose, behavioral and cognitive consequences, POCD, neuronal injury, neurological insults, cognitive decline
DEGENERATIVE CHANGE, INFLAMMATORY RESPONSE
Even though not statistically significant, sevoflurane group's postoperative results decreased on average by 1.25% whereas the patients receiving desflurane demonstrated a slight increase in postoperative score (1.61%). Despite that, this study revealed no statistical difference in cognitive scores between the sevoflurane and desflurane groups. Our data corresponds with the most recent review carried out by Alalawi and Yasmeen (Learning or practice effects are not uncommon as well when repeated tests are performed (Berger et al., Due to the lack of uniform definition, testing methods, diagnostic criteria, and a wide variety of investigated time frames and surgery types, the frequency of postoperative cognitive decline is exceptionally difficult to interpret. In our study only one patient (1.22%) was diagnosed with POCD. Advanced age (> 65 years), age‐related comorbidities, and degenerative changes predispose a cognitive decline by increasing vulnerability to neurological insults (Alalawi & Yasmeen, Interestingly, our study showed that the pronounced decline (> 20%) from the baseline was much more commonly found in memory tasks (18.29%). Even in normal aging, the inflammatory processes of the central nervous system intensify, and the impaired function of microglia cells can cause behavioral and cognitive consequences. Memory as well as attention are the basic most affected cognitive functions (Glisky, Total postoperative cognitive score was almost identical to the baseline results with a difference of only a few decimals in total study population. Yet, thyroid surgery itself is a low‐risk, short to intermediate duration procedure that triggers relatively mild disturbances. We found no association between postoperative cognitive scores and the duration of anesthesia, except for logic tasks. Though POCD is more frequent after major orthopedic or cardiovascular operations (Chen et al., We found a negative correlation, moderate though, between the lowest intraoperative temperature and the total postoperative and memory scores in the entire population under analysis. Interestingly, the negative impact was observed in the patients who received sevoflurane, but not the desflurane. Animal studies identified the effect fast rewarming and subsequent inflammatory response have on the neuronal injury (Wang et al., According to the study protocol, the entropy levels were measured to ensure the equal depth of sleep in all the participants and to avoid anesthetic overdose, which has been identified as another risk factor of POCD (Laopaiboon et al., 