Conscious rat PET imaging with soft immobilization for quantitation of brain functions: comprehensive assessment of anesthesia effects on cerebral blood flow and metabolism

BACKGROUND: Animal brain functions evaluated by in vivo imaging under anesthesia can be affected by anesthetic agents, resulting in incorrect assessment of physiological brain function. We therefore performed dynamic positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of conscious rats using recently reported soft immobilization to validate the efficacy of the immobilization for brain function assessments. We also determined the effects of six anesthetic agents—a mixed anesthetic agent (MMB), ketamine + xylazine (KX), chloral hydrate (Chloral), pentobarbital (PTB), propofol (PF), and isoflurane (IFL)—on brain function by comparison with conscious rats. RESULTS: The immobilization enabled 45-min dynamic [(18)F]FDG-PET acquisition with arterial blood sampling using conscious rats without the use of special techniques or invasive surgery. The spatial resolution and quantitativity of [(18)F]FDG-PET were not significantly lower for conscious rats than for anesthetized rats. While MMB, Chloral, PTB, and PF showed ubiquitous reduction in the cerebral metabolic rates of glucose (CMR(glu)) in brain regions, KX and IFL showed higher reductions in cerebellum and interbrain, and cerebellum, respectively. Cerebral blood flow (CBF) was reduced by MMB, KX, PTB, and PF; increased by IFL; and unaltered by Chloral. The magnitude of decrease in CMR(glu) and CBF for MMB were not larger than for other five anesthetic agents, although blood glucose levels and body temperature can be easily affected by MMB. CONCLUSION: The six anesthetic agents induced various effects on CMR(glu) and CBF. The immobilization technique presented here is a promising tool for noninvasive brain functional imaging using conscious rats to avoid the effects of anesthetic agents. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13550-021-00787-6.