Prolonged Exposure to Isoflurane Ameliorates Infarction Severity in the Rat Pup Model of Neonatal Hypoxia-Ischemia

The neonatal hypoxia-ischemia rat model referred to as the Rice-Vannucci model is extensively used to study perinatal hypoxia-ischemia and child brain injury. One of the major weaknesses of this model is its inconsistency of brain infarction among animals. We hypothesize that the inconsistency of infarction is caused by prolonged operation time and therefore isoflurane exposure. Neonatal hypoxia-ischemia was induced in postnatal days 7 and 10 rat pups by unilateral right common carotid ligation followed by 2.5 h of hypoxia (8% oxygen). The incision-to-ligation (ITL) was defined as the amount of time from initial incision (4 min after 2% isoflurane exposure) to completion of carotid ligation (at which point isoflurane exposure was also terminated). In the first part of the study, the ITL of each group was designated to be 5, 13, and 21 min. In the second part of the study, the ITL is designated to 4 min; however, continued isoflurane was used to make 5, 13, and 21 min isoflurane exposure for each group. Percentages of brain infarction were assessed at 48 h following surgery. Motor deficits were accessed by Rotarod test. Marked brain infarction was observed in the 5-min ITL group and a decrease of brain infarction observed in the 13- and 21-min groups (P<0.05). In the second part of the study, marked brain infarction was observed in the 5-min isoflurane exposure group, and a decrease of brain infarction was observed in each of the 13- and 21-min isoflurane exposure groups (P<0.05). Similar tendencies were observed in Rotarod tests than 5-min ITL and 5-min isoflurane groups showed more marked deficits (P<0.05). This study demonstrated that brain infarction inconsistency of the neonatal hypoxia-ischemia rat pup model is related to the operation time. The observed time-dependent decrease of brain infarction is correlated to the isoflurane exposure time. Shorter operation and isoflurane exposure improves this model consistency of brain infarction and motor deficits.