Jaakko Paasonen1,
Joanna K. Huttunen1, Olli Grhn1
1Department
of Neurobiology, A. I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University
of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland
Anesthesia is one of the most critical factors in designing a phMRI study. We investigated the BOLD signal changes under six different anesthesia protocols with a nicotine challenge in order to find optimal experimental phMRI setup. Nicotine injection in total of 39 rats induced clear cortical signal changes, in all animals, revealing several alternative approaches. However, the choice of anesthetic led to notably different BOLD responses emphasizing the need of optimization of anesthetic conditions for each pharmaceutical agent.