Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.06.26.174227v1?rss=1 Authors: Sullender, C. T., Richards, L. M., He, F., Luan, L., Dunn, A. K. Abstract: Anesthetized animal models are used extensively during neurophysiological and behavioral studies despite systemic effects from anesthesia that undermine both accurate interpretation and translation to awake human physiology. In this paper, we characterize the impact of isoflurane on cerebral blood flow (CBF) during the induction of general anesthesia in awake mice using multi-exposure speckle imaging (MESI). We highlight the large anatomical changes caused by the vasodilatory inhalant with wide-field imagery and quantify the cortical hemodynamics with MESI across multiple subjects and imaging sessions. Compared to the awake state, we measured, on average, an 18% increase in surface vessel diameter accompanied by a 135% increase in vascular flux and 92% increase in parenchyma perfusion. These large alterations to the cortical vasculature and CBF are unrepresentative of normal physiology and provide further evidence that neuroscience experiments would benefit from transitioning to un-anesthetized awake animal models. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info