STAT3 and Cognitive impairment: Chen et al. (2017) reported that DEX reduced neuronal damage in the hippocampus of rats undergoing cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB). Their findings indicated that CPB led to increased levels of p-JAK2 and p-STAT3 proteins, while DEX ameliorated POCD by inhibiting the JAK2/STAT3 pathway. In contrast, (Kim H. C. et al. (2017) observed that in aged mice pre-treated with DEX before exposure to isoflurane, DEX attenuated isoflurane-induced cognitive deficits despite elevated phosphorylation levels of JAK2 and STAT3.