Effects of thiopentone halothane-nitrous oxide anaesthesia compared to ketamine-xylazine anaesthesia on the DC recorded dog electroretinogram

Eleven ophthal-moscopically healthy dark adapted dogs were examined by DC ERG technique with single flash full field illumination starting with near b-wave threshold blue (tests 1-3) and white (tests 4-6) stimuli of different intensity and ending with 30 Hz photopic flicker smuli (test 7) after light adaptation. All animals were anaesthetized using 2 different anaesthetic methods: Anaesthesia I (A I): Induction with thiopentone sodium, continued with halothane and nitrous oxide in oxygen. Anaesthesia II (A II): Praemedication with xylazine hydrochloride followed by anaesthesia with ketamine hydrochloride. A minimum interval of 1 week was kept between all anaesthesias.The a- and b-wave amplitudes and latencies were determined. Statistical analysis of results indicated that the a- and b-waves were elicited by weaker intensities in A II. In Tests 3-6 the a-wave was highly significantly (P < 0.001), higher in amplitude in AII than in A I. Differencies in b-wave amplitudes were not statistically significant (except Test 1). The b-wave latencies were longer in AI in Test 2 (using low intensity blue light). The a-wave latencies were slightly shorter in AII in Test 6 (using high intensity white light).In additional experiments the selective action of the different agents (except N₂O) used in AI and AII was studied. Thiopentone alone given to 3 dogs seemed to depress the a-wave selectively.Halothane given separately to 3 dogs lowered both the a- and b-wave amplitudes. Ketamine given with a neuromuscular blocking agent to three dogs resulted in responses almost identical to those in AII.Xylazine with vecuronium given to 4 dogs resulted in responses with slighly depressed a- and b-waves in comparison to ketamine with vecuronium.The results indicate that when developing an animal model for the electrophysiologic study of human retinal dystropies, the actions of different anaesthetics upon the ERG components are of great importante.