Effects of pressure and anesthetics on conduction and synaptic transmission

The antagonism observed between pressure and anesthesia in intact animals suggests that pressure antagonism may be a promising criterion for identifying the effects of anesthetics which are important to loss of responsiveness. It is therefore of interest to compare the effects of pressure and anesthesia on conduction and on synaptic transmission, which have often been proposed as possible alternative cellular sites of anesthesia. The model used in this study is the isolated rat superior cervical ganglion. Helium pressure (35-103 atm) antagonized partial conduction block of the preganglionic nerve by halothane(0.5 and 1 mM). Helium pressure failed to antagonize the depressant effects of halothane (0.25-0.5 mM) on nicotinic transmission and of halothane or methoxyflurane (0.24 mM) on muscarinic transmission in the ganglion. Pressure itself severely depressed synaptic transmission and added to the depressant effects of the anesthetics. Conduction block as a possible cellular mechanism of anesthesia therefore meets the proposed criterion of pressure reversibility. In contrast, pressure does not antagonize anesthetic depression of excitatory synaptic transmission in the rat superior cervical ganglion.