Caffeine Accelerates Recovery from General Anesthesia via Multiple Pathways

Various studies have explored different ways to speed emergence from anesthesia. Previously, we have shown that three drugs that elevate intracellular cAMP (forskolin, theophylline and caffeine) accelerate emergence from anesthesia in rats. However, our earlier studies left two main questions unanswered. First, were cAMP elevating drugs effective at all anesthetic concentrations? Second, given that caffeine was the most effective of the drugs tested, why was caffeine more effective than forskolin since both drugs elevate cAMP? In our current study, emergence time from anesthesia was measured in adult rats exposed to 3% isoflurane for 60 minutes. Caffeine dramatically accelerated emergence from anesthesia, even at the high level of anesthetic employed. Caffeine has multiple actions including blockade of adenosine receptors. We show that the selective A2a adenosine receptor antagonist preladenant or the [cAMP]_i-elevating drug forskolin, accelerated recovery from anesthesia. When preladenant and forskolin were tested together, the effect on anesthesia recovery time was additive indicating that these drugs operate via different pathways. Furthermore, the combination of preladenant and forskolin was about as effective as caffeine suggesting that both A2A receptor blockade and [cAMP]_i elevation play a role in caffeine's ability to accelerate emergence from anesthesia. Because anesthesia in rodents is thought to be similar to that in humans, these results suggest that caffeine might allow for rapid and uniform emergence from general anesthesia in humans at all anesthetic concentrations and that both the elevation of [cAMP]_i and adenosine receptor blockade play a role in this response.

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