ABSTRACT
General anesthesia in rodents is often induced and maintained with inhalational, injectable, or combination anesthetics. General anesthesia and/or anesthetics cause severe cardiovascular depression, vasodilation, and decrease in organ perfusion; therefore, anesthesia should always be accompanied by some cardiopulmonary monitoring. The degree of monitoring will vary from simple observation to multiparameter invasive data observation (Table 5.1), depending on the procedure being performed. Goals for anesthesia monitoring are to detect physiological changes in time to start therapeutic intervention (Gargiulo et al. 2012). Simple Observation of Anesthetic Plane
Parameters
Light Plane
Surgical Plane
Deep Plane
Spontaneous movement
Present
Absent
Absent
Jaw tone
Present
Absent
Absent
Paw withdrawal reflex
Present
Absent
Absent
Mucous membrane (mm) color
Pink
Pink
Pale/gray
Respiratory pattern
Rapid
Rapid/shallow
Slow/gasping
Source: The table modified from Adams, S. and C. Pacharinsak. Curr. Protoc. Mouse Biol., 5(1), 51–63, 2015 and based on the author’s experience.