Influence of phenobarbital on changes in the metabolites of the energy reserve of the cerebral cortex following complete ischemia.

The present study, which concerns the rate of changes in the cerebral cortex concentrations of phosphocreatine (PCr), ATP, ADP, AMP, lactate and pyruvate during complete ischemia, had the objective of finding out whether or not phenobarbital retards depletion of tissue energy reserves during ischemia. Ischemia was induced for periods of 10 s to 10 min in animals maintained on 70% N2O or given 150 mg.kg-1 of phenobarbital. The results showed that the barbiturate anaesthesia delayed utilization of ATP during the first 2 min. However, after 5 min of ischemia PCr and ATP concentrations, as well as the calculated adenylate energy charge, were identical in animals anaesthetized with nitrous oxide and phenobarbital. Thus, phenobarbital induces a very moderate delay in the depletion of cerebral energy reserves that occurs during complete ischemia. The results obtained after 5-20 s of ischemia allowed calculation of energy (approximately P) utilization according to Lowry et al. (1964). The closed system method gave values for approximately P utilization which were not far from those obtained by CMRo2 measurements. However, with normal values for metabolic rate (70% N2O) valid estimates are obtained only with very short ischemic periods (5-10 s) and, with such short periods, the oxygen content of the tissue may introduce an error.