Enhancing Anesthetic Techniques for Improving Rat Whisker Stimulation Responses in the Barrel Cortex

Abstract This paper presents an efficient anesthetic methodology designed to enhance the quality of brain barrel cortex signals obtained during rat whisker stimulation experiments. The proposed approach effectively eliminates muscle noise interference, thereby enabling the acquisition of clear and robust brain barrel cortex signals. Initially, alpha-chloralose (ac) combined with Isoflurane is used to induce anesthesia in rats. Subsequently, Dexdomitor is administered to suppress muscular movements, further refining the signal quality. Experimental outcomes demonstrate that our anesthetic method yields significantly stronger and cleaner brain barrel cortex signals, exhibiting enhanced robustness compared to existing methods that rely solely on Isoflurane or the Ketamine-Xylazine combination. Specifically, brain barrel cortex signals obtained under alpha-chloralose anesthesia are double those obtained with Isoflurane and quadruple those with Ketamine-Xylazine. The peak amplitude latency is shorter under alpha-chloralose anesthesia than under Isoflurane and Ketamine-Xylazine anesthesia. Notably, these improvements are achieved with minimal alterations to vital physiological parameters, including body temperature, respiration, and heart rates. Finally, alpha-chloralose effectively maintains anesthesia for up to 7 hours, surpassing the shorter durations achievable with continuous Isoflurane administration or the 30-minute window offered by Ketamine-Xylazine. This highlights the practical advantages of our proposed method.