Urethane inhibits cardiovascular responses mediated by the stimulation of alpha-2 adrenoceptors in the rat.

Clonidine and oxymetazoline (4.0 microgram/kg i.v. or i.a.) evoked a marked bradycardia in either methylatropine-pretreated conscious or pentobarbital-anesthetized (55 mg/kg i.p.), vagotomized rats. Urethane (1.2 g/kg i.p.) inhibited by more than 50% this effect which is mediated through the stimulation of peripheral and/or central neuronal alpha-2 adrenoceptors. However, in adrenalectomized rats only the inhibition of oxymetazoline by urethane was significantly less pronounced. In pithed rats in which the adrenal glands were either left untouched or surgically removed, urethane significantly attenuated the clonidine or oxymetazoline-induced decreases in experimental neural sympathetic tachycardia although it neither changed the base-line nor the experimentally elevated heart rate. Urethane, in contrast to pentobarbital, increased plasma epinephrine concentrations in intact but not in adrenalectomized or in pithed rats. Elevation of plasma epinephrine did not result from the low arterial pressure level associated with urethane anesthesia since the increase of this parameter with vasopressin did not abolish the effect of urethane. Furthermore, guanethidine-pretreated rats, when anesthetized with urethane, exhibited a higher heart rate and plasma adrenaline value than those anesthetized with pentobarbital. The elevated heart rate was decreased by either propranolol or adrenalectomy. The bradycardia produced by injecting clonidine into the lateral cerebral ventricles of either intact or adrenalectomized rats was markedly less in urethane- than in pentobarbital-anesthetized animals. Whereas in pentobarbital-anesthetized rats the peak heart rate effects of i.v. or i.c.v. clonidine were similar, in urethane-anesthetized animals the effects of clonidine were more inhibited when it was given centrally than when it was given peripherally. In pithed rats, the cumulative dose-pressor response curves elicited by the relatively selective alpha-2 adrenoceptor agonists, B-HT 930 and M-7, were depressed by urethane significantly more than those produced by the relatively selective alpha-1 adrenoceptor agonists, phenylephrine and cirazoline, or by angiotensin II. Urethane also decreased the pressor responses evoked by clonidine, oxymetazoline and norepinephrine which stimulate both alpha-1 and alpha-2 adrenoceptors. However, the extent of this inhibition was less than that of B-HT 920 and M-7 but greater than that of cirazoline and phenylephrine. These results show that urethane inhibits cardiovascular responses that are mediated by peripheral and central alpha-2 adrenoceptors. Furthermore, urethane increases the central drive to the adrenal medulla and this leads to the secretion of epinephrine. This may be partly responsible for the inhibitory activity of urethane on oxymetazoline-induced bradycardia. Although the basic mechanism by which urethane impairs responses mediated by alpha-2 adrenoceptors remains to be determined, it is advised that urethane anesthesia should be avoided, particularly for cardiovascular studies.