Evaluation of anesthetic effects on parameters for the in situ rat brain perfusion technique

Studies of drug distribution to brain should be controlled for the experime ntal method used. Numerous methods have been employed to ascertain brain di stribution and many of these approaches use anesthetic agents. The in situ rat brain perfusion method is one of the most sensitive and widely used met hods for evaluating brain distribution profiles. There has been no evaluati on of the effects of anesthetic agents on parameters associated with this m ethod (i.e. cerebral perfusion fluid flow, brain vascular volume and blood- brain barrier permeability). WE! evaluated the effects of the anesthetic ag ents pentobarbital and ketamine combinations on these baseline parameters. The results suggest that the anesthetic agent has no effect on these parame ters and anesthetic selection is open to the choice of the investigator whe n using the perfusion method. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All ri ghts reserved.