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ISOFLURANE‐INDUCED IMPAIRMENTS IN RODENTS EXPOSED TO A NOVEL OBJECT RECOGNITION TASK

Previous work has shown that general anesthesia results in post‐surgical cognitive deficits. In addition, previous work has shown that isoflurane increases inflammatory cytokine expression and causes cell injury in the hippocampus, which may contribute to isoflurane‐induced cognitive impairment in rats. Others found that a single isoflurane exposure does not affect Morris Water Maze performance in mice. Although the possible role of isoflurane on hippocampal plasticity has been previously assessed, the role of an acute exposure of isoflurane on novel object recognition has not been described. Here, we will compare the acute effects of isoflurane anesthesia and ketamine anesthesia in a rodent model of hippocampal learning known as the Novel Object Recognition (NOR) Task. Male Sprague Dawley rats (3 mo. old) were exposed to either isoflurane anesthesia (1–3%) or ketamine anesthesia (100 mg/kg) 14 days prior to training on NOR. Our results clearly indicate that animals anesthestized with ketamine display typical learning of the novel object recognition task whereas isoflurane administered animals display distinct impairments (p < 0.05). Our results support the notion that an acute administration of isoflurane anesthesia results in hippocampal‐dependent spatial memory impairments. Future work should be aimed at developing neuroprotectants to diminish isoflurane‐mediated learning deficits in the hippocampus in surgical patients.