New evidence for refinement of anesthetic choice in procedures preceding the forced swimming test and the elevated plus-maze

Previous studies indicated that some general anesthetics induce long-term antidepressant and/or anxiolytic-like effects. This raises the concern about the use of anesthesia in surgeries that precede psychopharmacological tests, since it may be a potential bias on results depending on the experimental design used. Thus, we evaluated whether general anesthetics used in surgeries preceding psychopharmacological tests would affect rats behavior in tests predictive of antidepressant or anxiolytic-like effects. We tested if a single exposure to sub-anesthetic or anesthetic doses of tribromoethanol, chloral hydrate, thiopental or isoflurane would change rats behavior in the forced swimming test (FST) or in the elevated plus-maze (EPM) test, at 2 h or 7 days after their administration. We also evaluated whether prior anesthesia would interfere in the detection of the antidepressant-like effect of imipramine or the anxiolytic-like effect of diazepam. Previous anesthesia with the aforementioned anesthetics did not change rats behaviors in FST per se nor it changed the antidepressant-like effect induced by imipramine treatment. Rats previously anesthetized with tribromoethanol or chloral hydrate exhibited, respectively, anxiogenic-like and anxiolytic-like behaviors in the EPM. Prior anesthesia with thiopental or isoflurane did not produce any per se effect in rats behaviors in the EPM nor disturbed the anxiolytic-like effect of diazepam. Our results suggest that, in our experimental conditions, tribromoethanol and chloral hydrate are improper anesthetics for surgeries that precede behavioral analysis in the EPM. Isoflurane or thiopental may be suitable for anesthesia before evaluation in the EPM or in the FST.