Abstract
BackgroundQuick and complete recovery of cognitive function after general anesthesia is desirable, particularly for working-age patients. Desflurane is less likely to have long-term effects than older-generation inhalational anesthetics, however, its short-term effects have not been fully investigated. Our objective was to elucidate the short-term effects of desflurane exposure on learning and memory in young adult rats.MethodsSeven-week old male Sprague–Dawley rats were exposed to air (control), or desflurane at 0.7 or 1.2 minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) for 2 h (day 0). The inhibitory avoidance (IA) test was performed on day 1 to delineate the effects on contextual learning. Separate groups of control and 1.2 MAC desflurane animals underwent the IA test on days 3 and 7 to examine the time-dependent changes. Because the IA test is known to be dependent on the long-term potentiation (LTP) of the hippocampus and the trafficking of the GluR1 subunit of the α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptor into the synapses, the effects of 1.2 MAC desflurane on these phenomena were evaluated on day 1.ResultsDesflurane at 1.2 MAC, but not 0.7 MAC, significantly decreased the IA latencies on day 1 compared with the control (one-way ANOVA, F [2,48] = 5.974, P = 0.005, post hoc Tukey’s, mean difference [95% confidence interval], control vs. 1.2 MAC, 168 [49.9 to 287], P = 0.004; control vs. 0.7 MAC, 67.5 [− 51.2 to 186], P = 0.362). The latencies were not affected on days 3 and 7 (day 3, control vs. desflurane, P = 0.861; day 7, control vs. desflurane, P > 0.999). Consistently, hippocampal LTP on day 1 was significantly suppressed in the desflurane group compared with the control group (P = 0.006). Moreover, immunoblotting analysis of synaptic GluR1 expression revealed that desflurane exposure significantly suppressed GluR1 delivery to the synapses after IA training.ConclusionExposure to a relatively high concentration of desflurane caused reversible learning and memory impairment in young adult rats associated with suppression of GluR1 delivery to the synapses in the hippocampus.
Highlights
Quick and complete recovery of cognitive function after general anesthesia is desirable, for working-age patients
inhibitory avoidance (IA) latencies were not declined on days 3 or 7 with 1.2 minimum alveolar concentration (MAC) desflurane To investigate whether the impairment of learning after exposure to 1.2 MAC desflurane is a long lasting change or a temporary reversible change, we performed IA test on days 3 and 7 after exposure to 1.2 MAC desflurane
Because long-term potentiation (LTP) was suppressed with desflurane exposure, we investigated the expression levels of the amino-3hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid receptors (AMPAR) GluR1 subunit on day 1 in both IA-trained and untrained groups
Summary
Quick and complete recovery of cognitive function after general anesthesia is desirable, for working-age patients. Desflurane is less likely to have long-term effects than older-generation inhalational anesthetics, its short-term effects have not been fully investigated. Our objective was to elucidate the short-term effects of desflurane exposure on learning and memory in young adult rats. Desflurane is reported to induce neither neurotoxicity [16,17,18,19,20,21] nor clinical cognitive dysfunction [4], and is less likely to induce long-term effects on learning and memory in rats [14]. Regarding cognitive function, these studies investigated the effects 48 h [4] or 1 week or longer [14] after the anesthetic exposure and the shorter-term effects have not been fully studied.
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