Background　Children are on the peak stage of mental development， and their nervous system is highly plastic. Any medicine that has effect on the brain could impair the mental development of children. So we should pay more attention to the anesthetics used on children. Many researches have proved that general anesthetics may induce harm to the developing brain.　Objective　This article aims to reveal the adverse effects of general anesthetics to the developing brain by generalizing recent clinical and basic researches.　Content　Taking propofol， ketamine， sevoflurane and desflurane as examples， this article will briefly highlight the possible toxic effects of the general anesthetics to mental development， the mechanism and the prevention.　Trend　This review provides possible directions for future researches and guidance for children anesthetic medication by summarizing the results of relevant studies. Although the details of the mechanisms are not completely clear， further research is needed to explore this aspect， I thought it does provide guidance on the anesthetic medication and push the development of the studies on prevention of this impairment.