The fatty acid content and composition of spinal cord and brain of rabbits receiving intrathecal ketamine

The present study investigates the effects of intrathecal ketamine on the concentration and composition of fatty acids in blood-brain barrier (BBB) tissues of New Zealand male rabbits. Ketamine is a drug that produces analgesia following intrathecal injection. It is very well known that fatty acids (FAs) play an important role in membrane fluidity of BBB tissues, which control the transportation of substances into brain. The total cellular fatty acids in brain and three spinal cord sections (cervical, thoracic, lumbar) of rabbits with or without drug administration were determined by gas chromatography using the Sherlock software (Microbial ID, Newark, DE) with the eukary database of fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profiles for eukaryotic cells (Sherlock version 4.0). The fatty acid profiles of three different spinal cord sections were quite similar, but different than those of brain tissues. There were 23-25 fatty acids in spinal cord sections and 11 in the brain tissues of control animals compared to 23-27 fatty acids in spinal cord sections and 11 in the brain tissues of treated animals. The concentrations and compositions of the fatty acid methyl esters (FAMEs) in spinal cord and brain tissues were significantly changed by ketamine treatments. The overall changes in the concentrations and numbers of FAs indicate that the spinal drug tested in this study has neurotoxic effects on spinal cord and brain.