General anesthetics protects against cardiac arrest-induced brain injury by inhibiting calcium wave propagation in zebrafish

Cardiac arrest is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Although many victims are initially resuscitated, they often suffer from serious brain injury, even leading to a “persistent vegetative state”. Therefore, it is need to explore therapies which restore and protect brain function after cardiac arrest. In the present study, using Tg (HuC:GCaMP5) zebrafish as a model, we found the zebrafish brain generated a burst of Ca(2+) wave after cardiac arrest by in vivo time-lapse confocal imaging. The Ca(2+) wave was firstly initiated at hindbrain and then sequentially propagated to midbrain and telencephalon, the neuron displayed Ca(2+) overload after Ca(2+) wave propagation. Consistent with this, our study further demonstrated neuronal apoptosis was increased in cardiac arrest zebrafish by TUNEL staining. The cardiac arrest-induced Ca(2+) wave propagation can be prevented by general anesthetics such as midazolam or ketamine pretreatment. Moreover, midazolam or ketamine pretreatment dramatically decreased the neuronal apoptosis and improved the survival rate in CA zebrafish. Taken together, these findings provide the first in vivo evidence that general anesthetics pretreatment protects against cardiac arrest-induced brain injury by inhibiting calcium wave propagation in zebrafish. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13041-017-0323-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.