Studies on the long-term effects of general anesthetics on the learning ability of aged rats

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It has been reported that isoflurane, an inhalational general anesthetic, impairs spatial learning in rats weeks after the animals wake up from anesthesia. In this study, we tested the hypotheses that (1) isoflurane affects spatial learning after anesthesia in young adult rats, and that (2) this effect is more pronounced if anesthesia is performed during the night time while the rat is more active.The rats were divided into 4 groups (1) isoflurane 1.2% for 2 hours during the day time, (2) no anesthesia but otherwise handled identically as in (1) during the day time, (3) isoflurane 1.2% for 2 hours during the night time, (4) no anesthesia but otherwise handled identically as in (4). The 8-arm radial maze test was started 2 days after anesthesia or handling and continued for 21 days. These 4 groups of rats did not differ in any of the measured paremeters for this test, such as the number of days required to learn the maze. We conclude that isoflurane does NOT affect spatial learning ability after anesthesia in young adult rat, irrespective of whether anesthesia was administered during the day or night.