Aqueous humor messengers in the transient decrease of intraocular pressure after ganglionectomy.

Intraocular pressure (IOP) decreases in rabbits 1 day after superior cervical ganglionectomy. It was hypothesized that this IOP decrease was caused by an accumulation of norepinephrine (NE) released from the iris-ciliary body into the aqueous humor during nerve degeneration. Direct measurement of aqueous humor NE concentration, however, was not successful because of the technical difficulty. In the current study, aqueous humor NE after superior cervical ganglionectomy was extracted and quantified using high-performance liquid chromatography-electrochemical detection. Twelve New Zealand albino rabbits were maintained in a daily 12-hr light-12-hr dark environment. Unilateral ganglionectomy was done on these rabbits during the light phase under halothane anesthesia. Twenty-two hours after the procedure, a significant IOP decrease occurred. The IOP was 16.1 +/- 0.6 mmHg (mean +/- the standard error of the mean) in the operated eye and 20.9 +/- 0.6 mmHg in the contralateral eye (P < 0.01). Aqueous humor NE concentration in the operated eye (475 +/- 81 pg/ml) was not different from that in the contralateral eye (469 +/- 58 pg/ml). However, the concentration of aqueous humor cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in the operated eye (29.8 +/- 6.8 pmol/ml) was significantly higher (P < 0.05) than that in the contralateral eye (11.7 +/- 0.8 pmol/ml). These data indicate that aqueous humor NE per se does not cause the transient IOP decrease after superior cervical ganglionectomy and cAMP-mediated ocular activities may be involved in this change in IOP.