Jackie Andrade has been studying memory and awareness in anaesthesia for 20 years and has published around 80 articles, books and chapters, about 30 of which are on anaesthesia. She was trained at the Universities of Cambridge and Manchester, followed by post-doctoral research at the Medical Research Council's Applied Psychology Unit in Cambridge and a lectureship at the University of Sheffield. She is currently Professor of Psychology at Plymouth University.

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Some memory function persists even in adequate anaesthesia. Patients with no recollection of surgery can still show, on recovery, behaviour changes that reflect unconscious or ‘implicit’ memory. For example, we have shown implicit memory for words presented during surgery with general anaesthesia, even for patients whose bispectral index scores remained below 60 while the words were presented (Deeprose et al, 2005). Laboratory research shows how this priming might potentially affect psychological well-being on recovery. Specifically, priming is likely to exacerbate existing anxieties but may be used to beneficial effect through intra-operative positive suggestion, providing the patient is effectively prepared beforehand.