Thermal effect during ketamine anaesthesia in laboratorial mice

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2012

Authors

Ribeiro P. (Author) Other; Silva A. (Author) FEUP; Antunes L. (Author) Other; Gabriel J. (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Thermology International

Vol. 22

Pages: 105-109

ISSN: 1560-604X

Publisher: European Association of Thermology

Indexing

Scopus - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00W-01Y

Abstract (EN): Ketamine is an anaesthetic and analgesic agent used frequently in research and clinical practice. However, this drug is related with memory deficits. These deficits are dependent of the temperature. So, body temperature is an important parameter to monitor during anesthesia. Determination of body temperature by traditional means, such rectal thermometer, is stressful to animals, and extremely time consuming. Thermography may be a rapid non-invasive method to determine mice superficial body temperatures without the need to insert thermometers, thermocouples or implantable microchips. Therefore the purpose of this study was to evaluate thermography as noninvasive method for monitoring thermal superficial changes during ketamine anaesthesia in laboratory animals. To achieve this aim, four adult mice were anaesthetized with ketamine (150 mg/kg) and their body temperature was measured continuously during anaesthesia and recovery of the animals. Thermal measures were conducted using a FLIR long infrared camera with a spatial resolution of 320x240 pixels, a thermal sensitivity of 68 mK. Our results showed that tail temperature decreased during anaesthesia, as we expected. In summary, this work showed that thermography showed to be a good, fast and easy method to evaluate the thermal distribution in living beings. Moreover, this work suggested that thermography can be used for developing better and more effective types of anaesthesia.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 4