Rapid tolerance to focal cerebral ischemia in rats is attenuated by adenosine A1 receptor antagonist.

Two types of ischemic tolerance in the brain, rapid and delayed, have been reported in terms of the interval between the conditioning and test insults. Although many reports showed that delayed-phase neuroprotection evoked by preconditioning is evident after 1 week or longer, there have been a few investigations about rapidly induced tolerance, and the reported neuroprotective effects become ambiguous 7 days after the insults. The authors examined whether this rapid ischemic tolerance exists after 7 days of reperfusion in a rat focal ischemic model, and investigated modulating effects of the adenosine A 1 receptor antagonist DPCPX (8-cyclopentyl-1,3-dipropylxanthine). Preconditioning with 30 minutes of middle cerebral artery occlusion reduced infarct volume 7 days after 180 minutes of subsequent focal ischemia given after 1-hour reperfusion. The rapid preconditioning also improved neurologic outcome. These beneficial effects were attenuated by pretreatment of 0.1 mg/kg DPCPX, which did not influence the infarct volume after conditioning (30 minutes) or test (180 minutes) ischemia when given alone. The results show that preconditioning with a brief focal ischemia induces rapid tolerance to a subsequent severe ischemic insult, the effect of which is still present after 7 days of reperfusion, and that the rapid ischemic tolerance is possibly mediated through an adenosine A 1 receptor-related mechanism.