Influence of chlormethiazole on cerebral blood flow and oxygen consumption in the rat, and its effect on the recovery of cortical energy metabolism after pronounced, incomplete ischaemia.

The influence of an anaesthetic dose of chlormethiazole (Hemineurin) on blood flow (CBF) and oxygen consumption (CMRO2) in the rat brain was investigated. In spontaneously breathing animals a dose of 160 mg . kg-1 of chlormethiazole, infused i.v., induced a state close to surgical anaesthesia. In paralyzed animals, the same dose decreased CBF and CMRO2 to about 60% of control, an effect similar to that observed after an anaesthetic dose of phenobarbitone. Neither a protective nor a detrimental effect of chlormethiazole could be demonstrated when the drug was given during reversible and pronounced, incomplete ischaemia, as evaluated from the postischaemic tissue concentrations of labile phosphates (PCr, ATP, ADP, AMP) and of lactate and pyruvate. It is concluded that protection in this situation (as earlier shown with phenobarbitone) must, at least partly, be related to other mechanisms than a depression of metabolism.