General anesthesia similar to sleep

This article discusses research discussing how general anesthesia may cause deep sleep. Researchers studied the brains of mice under anesthesia and found that the anesthetics turn off wake-promoting neurons and turned on sleep-promoting neurons. However, anesthesia is still not normal sleep. But general anesthesia can allow anesthesiologists to identify individuals at risk for obstructive sleep apnea - I get frequent referrals for this very problem, since the anesthesiologist is "watching them sleep" for hours!