Pentobarbital anesthesia suppresses basal and 2-deoxy-D-glucose-stimulated plasma catecholamines.

Since pentobarbital anesthesia is known to attenuate certain autonomic reflexes, we tested whether pentobarbital would suppress both basal and stimulated levels of plasma catecholamines and whether a large stimulus might counterbalance this suspected suppression. In untrained dogs, sampled by venipuncture, pentobarbital (30 mg/kg iv) decreased the plasma concentration of epinephrine (E) from 146 +/- 9 to 38 +/- 8 (SE) pg/ml (n = 46) and norepinephrine (NE) from 276 +/- 13 to 91 +/- 10 pg/ml (both P less than 0.0005), suggesting that barbiturate anesthesia suppresses sympathetic outflow in these mildly stressed animals. Pentobarbital also had a marked suppressive effect on the lower baseline catecholamines (E, 84 +/- 14 pg/ml; NE, 118 +/- 10 pg/ml; n = 6) of trained, chronically catheterized dogs, suggesting that it was capable of suppressing resting sympathetic outflow as well. To determine whether pentobarbital anesthesia also suppressed reflex activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the plasma catecholamine response to the neuroglucopenic agent, 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2-DG), was measured in conscious and in pentobarbital-anesthetized dogs. In conscious dogs, the administration of 2-DG (100 mg/kg iv) doubled the base-line plasma concentration of E and NE 30 min after the 2-DG injection. In contrast, the administration of 2-DG (100 mg/kg iv) to pentobarbital-anesthetized dogs produced no significant increase of either plasma catecholamine, suggesting marked suppression of this sympathetic reflex.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)