Dopaminergic Neurons in the Ventral Tegmental–Prelimbic Pathway Promote the Emergence of Rats from Sevoflurane Anesthesia
Yanping Song1,3 • Ruitong Chu2 • Fuyang Cao4 • Yanfeng Wang5 • Yanhong Liu1 • Jiangbei Cao1 • Yongxin Guo1 • Weidong Mi1 • Li Tong1
1 Anesthesia and Operation Center, The First Medical Center of Chinese, PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China
2 Department of Anesthesia, Second Affiliated Hospital of Naval Medical University, Shanghai 200003, China
3 Chinese PLA Medical School, Beijing 100853, China
4 Department of Anesthesia, The Sixth Medical Center of Chinese, PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100048, China
5 Department of Anesthesia, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha 410008, China
Abstract
Dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) play an important role in cognition, emergence from anesthesia, reward, and aversion, and their projection to the cortex is a crucial part of the "bottom-up" ascending activating system. The prelimbic cortex (PrL) is one of the important projection regions of the VTA. However, the roles of dopaminergic neurons in the VTA and the VTADA–PrL pathway under sevoflurane anesthesia in rats remain unclear. In this study, we found that intraperitoneal injection and local microinjection of a dopamine D1 receptor agonist (Chloro-APB) into the PrL had an emergence-promoting effect on sevoflurane anesthesia in rats, while injection of a dopamine D1 receptor antagonist (SCH23390) deepened anesthesia. The results of chemogenetics combined with microinjection and optogenetics showed that activating the VTADA–PrL pathway prolonged the induction time and shortened the emergence time of anesthesia. These results demonstrate that the dopaminergic system in the VTA has an emergence-promoting effect and that the bottom-up VTADA–PrL pathway facilitates emergence from sevoflurane anesthesia.
Keywords
Ventral tegmental area; Prelimbic cortex; Dopamine; Sevoflurane; General anesthesia
