Abstract
Ether, pentobarbital and ketamine had distinctly different effects on rats. Ether, given from a pad in a closed jar and by open mask, produced profound analgesia and loss of righting reflex, with recovery of righting reflex and activity within 2 to 3 min of removal of the anesthetic. Pentobarbitone produced less analgesia but a quick loss of righting reflex with recovery occurring slowly over about 1 hr. Ketamine produced good analgesia yet the animals barely lost their righting reflex; recovery took 1/2 to 1 hr. No evidence was obtained to confirm the reported reduction in the effect of 6 hydroxydopamine in animals anesthetized with pentobarbitone. In fact, in this particular experiment the rats treated with pentobarbitone showed the greatest depletion of striatal dopamine (P < 0.02), which was consistent with the more marked effect on conditioned avoidance behavior. 6 Hydroxydopamine produced similar behavioral and biochemical effects in animals treated with either ether or ketamine.