[Effect of anaesthesia on the metabolism of noradrenaline in rat brain (author's transl)].

A specific and sensitive method is described for the separation and determination of metabolites of radioactively labelled noradrenaline in very small amounts of brain tissue. This method gives reproducible results, it allows the direct determination of all major metabolites of noradrenaline from the same extract, and is suitable for quantitating a large number of samples in relatively short time. This method was used to investigate how the half-life (turnover) and the metabolism of noradrenaline in rat brain may be influenced by anaesthesia with nembutal. It was found that both the half-life time as well as the metabolism of noradrenaline are reduced during nembutal anaesthesia; in addition, the release of metabolites of noradrenaline into the blood is delayed. When studying the metabolism of neurotransmitters, it has to be considered that nembutal-narcosis influences the metabolic pattern of noradrenaline as well as its temporal changes.