Adenosine-induced enhanced recovery of evoked responses after anoxia

Transverse slices of rat hippocampus were used to test the effect of adenosine on recovery of synaptically-evoked potentials after anoxia. To produce conditions better resembling ischaemia, glucose was omitted during the period of anoxia. Anoxia abolished all electrical activity within 5 min. The responses recovered completely after short periods of anoxia (3 min), but the amount of recovery was progressively reduced with longer exposures. The recovery was enhanced by the presence of 100 microM adenosine: the exposure time giving a 50% recovery of the response was 17.6 +/- 1.8 min in normal solution and 29.0 +/- 4.1 min with adenosine. These results are consistent with the idea that adenosine offers some protection from anoxia.