[Effect of halothane on ventilation and arterial blood gases in rats with and without diaphragmatic paralysis]

Volatile anaesthetic depression of the carotid body chemoreflex-mediated ventilatory response to hypoxia: directions for future research

In assessing whether volatile anaesthetics directly depress the carotid body response to hypoxia it is necessary to combine in meta-analysis studies of when it is "functionally isolated" (e.g., recordings are made from its afferent nerve). Key articles were retrieved (full papers in English) and subjected to quantitative analysis to yield an aggregate estimate of effect. Results from articles that did not use such methodology were assessed separately from this quantitative approach, to see what could be learned also from a nonquantitative overview. Just 7 articles met the inclusion criteria for hypoxia and just 6 articles for hypercapnia. Within these articles, the anaesthetic (mean dose 0.75, standard deviation (SD) 0.40 minimum alveolar concentration, MAC) statistically significantly depressed carotid body hypoxic response by 24% (P = 0.041), but a similar dose (mean 0.81 (0.42) MAC) did not affect the hypercapnic response. The articles not included in the quantitative analysis (31 articles), assessed qualitatively, also indicated that anaesthetics depress carotid body function. This conclusion helps direct future research on the anaesthetic effects on putative cellular/molecular processes that underlie the transduction of hypoxia in the carotid body.

Are rodents an appropriate pre-clinical model for treating spinal cord injury? Examples from the respiratory system

Because most studies of the effects of spinal cord injury (SCI) and resulting repair and treatments use rodent models, it is important to determine if these models are relevant to humans. In this review, we focus on alterations in respiratory function as a result of SCI. Several injury paradigms have been used in the rat to examine restoration of post-lesion respiratory function and potential benefits from repair strategies designed for humans. Unlike the corticospinal locomotor system, respiratory neural organization is well preserved between rodents and humans, and resembles the general organization of motor pathways in primates. These similarities justify the use of the rodent respiratory system as a model to analyze SCI and putative repair strategies.