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Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Quantifying Acute Changes in Renal Sympathetic Nerve Activity in Response to Central Nervous System Manipulations in Anesthetized Rats
Published on: September 11, 2018
Differentiation of ketamine effects on renal nerve activity and renal blood flow in rats
Chiang-Ting Chien1, Ya-Jung Cheng, Chau-Fong Chen
1Department ofAnesthesiology, National Taiwan University Hsopital, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, ROC.
Background:
A biphasic pattern in the effects of increasing dose of ketamine on mean arterial blood pressure (MBP) and renal sympathetic nerve activities (RSNA) was shown in previous study. We hypothesized that if renal vascular resistance (RVR) and renal blood flow (RBF) are mainly controlled by RSNA, they will show a similar biphasic pattern under increasing doses of ketamine.
Methods:
16 female Wistar rats anesthetized with urethane were studied for ketamine at 0.5, 1, 2 mg/kg, i.v. at 30 min intervals. Multifiber RSNA recording was studied in 8 rats and RBF (by electromagnetic flowmeter) and RVR were studied in the other 8 rats with intact renal nerves.
Results:
Our results showed that although incremental doses of ketamine brought about a biphasic pattern in MBP and RSNA, the decrease in RBF and the increase in RVR went a dose-related way.
Conclusions:
We concluded that there was a differentiation of ketamine effects on renal nerve activity and renal blood flow in rats. The changes of RBF and RVR can not only be attributed to the effects of sympathetic nerve activities.
