Response to hypercapnia and exercise hyperpnea in graded anesthesia.

We examined the relationship between response to hypercapnia and ventilatory response to exercise under graded anesthesia in eight dogs. The response to hypercapnia was measured by the CO2 rebreathing method under three grades of chloralose-urethan anesthesia. The degrees of response to hypercapnia (delta VE/delta PETCO2, 1 X min-1 X Torr-1) in light (L), moderate (M), and deep (D) anesthesia were 0.40 +/- 0.05 (mean +/- SE), 0.24 +/- 0.03, and 0.10 +/- 0.02, respectively, and were significantly different from each other. Under each grade of anesthesia, exercise was performed by electrically stimulating the bilateral femoral and sciatic nerves for 4 min. The time to reach 63% of full response of the increase in ventilation (tauVE) after beginning of exercise was 28.3 +/- 1.5, 38.1 +/- 5.2, and 56.0 +/- 6.1 s in L, M, and D, respectively. During steady-state exercise, minute ventilation (VE) in L, M, and D significantly increased to 6.17 +/- 0.39, 5.14 +/- 0.30, and 3.41 +/- 0.16 1 X min-1, from resting values of 3.93 +/- 0.34, 2.97 +/- 0.17, and 1.69 +/- 0.14 1 X min-1, respectively, while end-tidal CO2 tension (PETCO2) in L decreased significantly to 34.8 +/- 0.9 from 35.7 +/- 0.9, did not change in M (38.9 +/- 1.1 from 38.9 +/- 0.8), and increased significantly in D to 47.3 +/- 1.9 from 45.1 +/- 1.7 Torr.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)