• James M Sonner, Yilei Xing, Yi Zhang, Anya Maurer, Michael S Fanselow, Robert C Dutton, and Edmond I Eger.
• Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care S-455, University of California-San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143-0464, USA. sonnerj@anesthesia.ucsf.edu
• Anesth. Analg. 2005 May 1;100(5):1333-7, table of contents.

AbstractPrevious reports suggest that the administration of epinephrine increases learning during deep barbiturate-chloral hydrate anesthesia in rats but not during anesthesia with 0.4% isoflurane in rabbits. We revisited this issue, using fear conditioning to a tone in rats as our experimental model for learning and memory and isoflurane and desflurane as our anesthetics. Expressed as a fraction of the minimum alveolar anesthetic concentration (MAC) preventing movement in 50% of rats, the amnestic 50% effective dose (ED(50)) for fear to tone in control rats inhaling isoflurane and injected with saline intraperitoneally (i.p.) was 0.32 +/- 0.03 MAC (mean +/- se) compared with 0.37 +/- 0.06 MAC in rats injected with 0.01 mg/kg of epinephrine i.p. and 0.38 +/- 0.03 MAC in rats injected with 0.1 mg/kg of epinephrine i.p. For desflurane, the amnestic ED(50) were 0.32 +/- 0.05 MAC in control rats receiving a saline injection i.p. versus 0.36 +/- 0.04 MAC in rats injected with 0.1 mg/kg of epinephrine i.p. We conclude that exogenous epinephrine does not decrease amnesia produced by inhaled isoflurane or desflurane, as assessed by fear conditioning to a tone in rats.

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